Herbs de Provence Roast Chicken
My go-to Monday night roast chicken recipe… Herbs de Provence Roast Chicken.
As kids, Monday night was always roast night. A cracking dinner with all the roast vegetables to start the week back at work. It makes complete sense, doesn’t it? A good roast dinner doesn’t need to be fancy or a special occasion dinner. Just simple ingredients cooked well with minimal effort.
Roast the chicken alongside chunks of potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, carrots, and whole garlic, and serve with steamed greens and lashings of made from scratch, chicken gravy. Or swap things up a bit. It’s a great mid-week dinner with colcannon and a green salad. Here’s some of my favorite side dishes to serve with roast chicken.
These days I tend to cook a roast for Sunday lunch or Monday dinner most weeks. Either way, I always make extra so we have lunchmeat sorted for the week!
What you need to get started
- Herbs de Provence blend is a mixture of herbs typical of the Provence region in southern France. It’s a pantry staple for a slow cook. As well as roast chicken, it is also a cracking combination with garlic and roast lamb. Also, try sprinkling this all-purpose seasoning blend over roast vegetables and adding it to soups and stews. I mostly use the rub mixture sprinkled over chicken breasts before grilling as it’s a quick and easy chicken dish for dinner alongside a side salad.
- Butter. I use unsalted, just because it’s what I always have on hand. Aside from spreadable butter for toast, I only buy unsalted butter blocks
- A good, family-size organic whole chicken. Please note the cooking time is largely dependent on the size of the chicken. I always look for a 2kg bird for a roast dinner
- Fresh lemon. The lemon in the cavity of the roast chicken helps ensure the chicken doesn’t dry out while cooking. It also infuses a slight lemon flavor to the bird from the lemon juice.
- Fresh Herbs – My go-to roast chicken herb combination is bay leaves, parsley and thyme.
- Olive oil
The details
- Preheat oven to 200°c.
- Start with making the salt. Combine the herb de Provence and salt in a small bowl. Give a quick mix to combine.
- Chop your butter into 12 pieces. Roll the butter in the salt rub. Place chicken (breast side up) in a roasting pan and pat the chicken dry. With the chicken legs pointed towards you, gently place your fingers under the chicken breast skin and loosen the skin from the breasts. Take ¾ of your butter and push it under the skin. I tend to put 3 pieces of butter on each breast and 1 each on the top of the leg (still under the chicken skin).
- Pop the remaining butter in the cavity of the chicken along with the fresh herbs and lemon. Drizzle the whole bird with olive oil and rub with any remaining salt rub.
- Pop into a preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Baste your chicken every 15-20 minutes with the pan juices. The chook will be cooked when you can insert a skewer into the meat and the juices run clear as well as a lovely golden brown, crispy skin.
- Remove from the oven, and let it rest for 10 minutes. Carve & serve.
Let’s take this up a notch
A roast chicken dinner can be as simple or spectacular as you want it to be. Let’s talk side dishes…
Simple… Add a simple salad like this burrata Caprese salad or maybe a loaf of bacon and cheese soda bread which can double up as an amazing toastie for lunch the next day by shredding any leftover chicken, topping with cheddar, a little mayo, and toasting!
Let go all out! I’m thinking duck fat roast potatoes with truffle salt, lashings of homemade gravy, lots of steamed green vegetables, peas, honey carrots, and wine. Don’t forget the white wine – It’s essential when you’ve just cooked up a feast like this!
Cooks notes
When cooking a whole chicken, always remove it from the packaging and rinse the cavity of the bird with water to ensure there are no remnants of its bits. Dry with paper towels and proceed with the recipe.
If you are using an instant-read thermometer, the cooked internal temperature of a whole chicken is 75 C. Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the chicken breast meat. Don’t have a thermometer? Insert a skewer into the thickest part of the meat. If the juices that come to the surface run clear, then your chicken is most likely cooked and ready to serve up!
Don’t forget to take advantage of all that delicious flavor when you remove the cooked chicken from the roasting pan. There is so much flavor on the bottom of the pan and in the drippings, so utilize them to make a flavorful sauce to go with your roast dinner!
Equipment you’ll need to cook Roast herbs de Provence chicken.
The good thing about this recipe is the minimal prep and minimal utensils needed… You’ll need a roasting pan, or baking dish. Alternatively, you can also cook this in a Dutch oven or cast iron skillet. Some cooks prefer to use a wire rack in their roasting pan to keep the roast out of the drippings. Personally, for me, it’s all about the flavor, so I don’t use one.
A small cutting board, a small bowl, and a cooks knife are also essentials when cooking herb de Provence roasted chicken.
A quick tip
TIP: Make extra salt rub! I always make in bulk and store mine in a jar in my spice drawer. Aside from herb de Provence roast chicken, try rubbing the same salt rub in the recipe below on a leg of lamb studded with garlic cloves and rosemary or even some boneless chicken thighs before cooking in a skillet. AH-MAZ-ING! The browned bits and chicken juices can also make a cracking, from-scratch gravy.
Have leftovers?
You can store a cooked roast chicken in an airtight container for up to three days.
Here are a few more chicken recipes you might like
- Easy Dutch Oven Pulled Chicken – Mexican Style!
- Curried Chicken Kebab Salad with Kasundi Mayonnaise
- Juicy Grilled Cajun Chicken Burger with Avocado and Sweet Chilli Sauce
- Chicken & Bacon Creamy Pesto Pasta
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Roast Herb de Provence Chicken
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 people 1x
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Roasting
- Cuisine: French
Description
My go-to Monday night roast chicken recipe! Serve this one with lashings of homemade gravy and ALL the vegetables
Ingredients
- 1 Chicken (whole)
- 60 g Butter (unsalted)
- 2 tsp Salt Flakes (Murray River Salt flakes if you can get your hands on them)
- 1 tsp Herbs De Provence
- ½ Lemon
- 1 bunch Fresh Herbs (parsley, bay, thyme works perfectly)
- olive oil (extra virgin to drizzle)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°c.
- Start with making the salt. Combine the herb de provence and salt in a small bowl. Give a quick mix to combine.
- Chop your butter into 12 pieces. Roll the butter in the salt rub. With the chicken legs pointed towards you, gently place your fingers under the chicken breast skin and loosen the skin from the breasts. Take ¾ of your butter and push it under the skin. I tend to put 3 pieces of butter on each breast and 1 each on the top on the leg (still under the skin)
- Pop remaining butter in the chicken cavity along with the fresh herbs and lemon. Drizzle the entire chicken with olive oil and rub with any remaining salt rub.
- Pop into a preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Baste your chicken every 20minutes with the pan juices. The chook will be cooked when you can insert a skewer into the meat and the juices run clear as well as a lovely golden, crispy skin.
- Remove from oven, let it rest for 10 minutes. Carve & serve.
Notes
Roast chook is a staple in our house. Rarely a week goes by when i don’t cook a chicken for dinner or even just for lunches. You can easily dress it up with roasted root vegetables, greens and gravy for roast night or simply with a green salad and homemade potato chips for a casual dinner.
