What do you do?

I like to treat the whole chickens like a roast, using a cast iron dutch oven with a lid to cook in. It’s an easy one-dish meal with plenty of leftovers. You’ll need the following items:

• Cast iron dutch oven with lid

• Oven

• Meat Thermometer

• Whole Chicken

• Olive Oil

• Preferred Seasonings

• Vegetables, Rice, Potatoes, etc.

You will start by thawing your bird 1-2 days in advance, depending on the size. Birds under 3.5 lbs should thaw in 1 day, larger birds will need 2 days. Should you choose to brine or marinate your bird, allow an extra day; once thawed, you will want to allow it to sit that for 24 hours to allow the fullness of all the flavors to absorb.

Once you are prepared to start cooking your bird, first turn your oven onto the Broil setting. Allow it to come to temperature while you are doing the next steps. Place your dutch oven on the stove top, over low-medium heat. Add olive oil, along with garlic, onions, shallots or any other delicious flavors you’d like to caramelize. When those are ready, turn off your stove top & place the whole chicken inside the pan. Add another layer of olive oil on top of the chicken & season generously with your preferred seasonings. Place any items you like around the chicken, such as vegetables, potatoes, etc. Add additional seasonings to those if you like. If you are adding a starch like rice or quinoa, you will need to add the appropriate amount of water needed per cooking instructions. Otherwise, no additional water is necessary-the bird will produce plenty of juices by itself!

When you have placed all the items you want into your pan and the oven has reached its broil temperature, place the entire pan into the center of the oven, without the lid. Monitor closely until the chicken has the desired golden color on top, usually 10-15 minutes. Then place the lid onto your dutch oven, and turn the oven temperature down to 275-325. ‘Low and slow’ is the best method I have found for making delicious, tender, juicy chicken that falls right off the bone. For smaller birds 2-3 lbs, cooking time is around an hour, for larger birds 5-7 lbs, I have let them cook for 3 hours, even leaving them in the oven on the Keep Warm setting. Check the birds internal temperature with your meat thermometer after the desired cooking time has past, to ensure it has reached the recommended 165 degrees.

Once ready, if you prefer to serve your bird whole go for it! I like to let the bird set for a 15 minutes or so out of the oven, and then de-bone it completely before serving. It makes leftovers easy to manage, giving you lots of options for them such as chicken salad, tacos, soup, pasta, or even shredded for bbq chicken sandwiches.

The bones, including the neck (which is inside the cavity of the chicken), can be frozen and saved for bone broth during cool months. They can also be baked in the oven at a low temp for several hours to dry them out, and then crushed into bone meal for your garden plants. Flowering bulbs, like tulips, especially like the nutrients bone meal offers.

Enjoy!

-RaDonda