Roast Chicken
Classic herb-butter roast chicken with crisp skin.
Ingredients
- 1 Whole chicken
- 60 g Butter
- 1 head Garlic
- 1 Lemon
- 1 tbsp Salt
- ½ tsp Black pepper
- 1 tbsp Thyme (optional)
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F); rub the chicken with herb butter, salt, and pepper.
- Stuff the cavity with garlic and lemon.
- Roast until the juices run clear and the skin is crisp, about 60 minutes.
- Rest 10 minutes, then carve and serve.
Tap “Start cooking” for live timers that flag what to get ahead on while something simmers.
About Roast Chicken
Poulet roti — French roast chicken — is one of those benchmark dishes a kitchen is measured by, a whole bird rubbed with herb butter and roasted until the skin crackles and the meat stays juicy. It is Sunday-lunch food across France, sold rotisserie-style from market stalls and cooked at home with little more than butter, thyme, garlic, and lemon. The simplicity is deliberate: with so few ingredients, the quality of the bird and the crispness of the skin carry everything.
The technique is quietly clever. Rubbing herb butter over and under the skin bastes the meat from within as it renders, while garlic and a halved lemon stuffed in the cavity perfume the flesh with aromatic steam as it roasts. Roasting until the juices run clear and then resting the bird for ten minutes lets those juices redistribute so the carved meat stays moist rather than draining onto the board. Served with its pan juices and something to catch them — potatoes, bread, a simple salad — it's the definition of unpretentious cooking done well, where getting the fundamentals right beats any elaborate embellishment.
Roast Chicken: frequently asked questions
How many calories are in Roast Chicken?
A serving has about 939 calories — 71g protein, 5.4g carbs, 68.9g fat, 1g fiber. Figures are estimated from the ingredient amounts and will shift with your portions and brands.
Is it high in protein?
Each serving has about 71g of protein, roughly 30% of its calories.
Is Roast Chicken gluten-free?
Based on its ingredients, Roast Chicken has no gluten-containing components, so it's naturally gluten-free — as always, check that any packaged ingredients you use are certified gluten-free to be safe.
Is Roast Chicken dairy-free?
Not as written — it uses Butter. Swapping it for a plant-based alternative makes it dairy-free.
How long does Roast Chicken take to make?
About 80 minutes start to finish, but only around 17 of those are hands-on — the rest is largely unattended cooking time you can step away from. In the Homecooked app the timers and parallel steps are sequenced for you so the hands-on part feels even shorter.
Do I need every ingredient to make Roast Chicken?
The core ingredients are essential, but you can leave out thyme — it's optional and mainly there for extra flavor or finish.
How many servings does Roast Chicken make?
This recipe makes 4 servings. In the app you can scale it up or down and the ingredient amounts adjust automatically.