Looking for an easy roast chicken recipe? This is the easiest one you’ll ever find — just 3 ingredients, takes 10 minutes to prep, and ready in one hour. No basting required!

Easy Roast Chicken

Most roast chicken recipes are unnecessarily complicated. This recipe is almost effortless. And it comes out perfect every time.

Roasting chickens every week is my number one tip for saving money on real food.

In this post, I explain why you will save 80% on meat when you buy whole chickens and roast them – versus buying boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Jump down to recipe

Why Organic Roast Chicken?

I absolutely insist that the chicken be organic. Why? Because of fluoride. Yes, non-organic chicken contains pesticides, but more importantly to me, it’s the fluoride.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that fluoride is a huge health hazard, causing everything from hypothyroidism to ovarian cysts to breast cancer to osteoporosis.

Chicken bones are extremely high in fluoride unless the chickens are organic. This is because the chickens on conventional (non-organic) farms are fed chicken feed that is made from grains that is heavily sprayed with fluoride-based pesticides.

The fluoride is stored in their bones and we end up eating it and it is stored in our bones. And fluoride has a 20-year half life so it’s very hard to get it out of the system.

Roast Chicken Gives You Bones for Bone Broth

I make an organic roast chicken pretty much every week, first and foremost to get the bones for bone broth. I use chicken stock to make soups, stews and gravy, as well as everything from enchiladas to brisket tacos. I also use chicken stock to cook beans and rice, to make them tastier and more nutritious.

My recipe for Pressure Cooker Chicken Stock is the fast and easiest way to make it and that’s how I do it these days.

If you don’t have a pressure cooker, here’s my basic recipe for chicken stock.

Roast Chicken is A Whole Lot Cheaper Than Chicken Breasts

Whole chickens are so much cheaper than boneless, skinless chicken breasts. In fact, when you buy a whole chicken instead of chicken breasts, you can save anywhere from 40-75%. You can buy a whole organic chicken for $2.50-$5 per pound. Meanwhile, organic chicken breasts cost $8-12 per pound.

You actually save more than that because you can eat the skin (delicious and a good source of vitamin D) and use the bones for bone broth (rich in minerals and gut-healing, skin-beautifying collagen).

Organic chicken bones (necks) run $1-4 per pound. You typically get about 2 pounds worth of bones from a chicken frame. If you add in the money you save from not having to buy bones to make broth, you save anywhere from 80%-90% buying whole chickens.

Also, you can use the leftover chicken from this meal for another dish. We usually make tacos, nachos, chicken noodle soup, or chicken enchiladas or white bean chicken chili.

Easy Roast Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

Chicken, whole, organic or pastured, 2-3 pounds (1)
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Optional: Butter
Optional: Potatoes, russet (2)
Optional: Carrots, trimmed and cut in half (4)
Optional: Onion, white (1)

Equipment

Kitchen Twine
Kitchen Shears
Roasting Pan with Roasting Rack – Get a roasting pan and rack that's stainless steel, not Teflon or aluminum
Cutting board or platter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 475°F.
2. Rinse the chicken and remove any giblets from the cavity. Freeze giblets use for making broth – or you can feed to your pets.
3. Dry chicken well with a paper towel or clean cloth and sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. If using butter, smear butter all over first. (I typically use butter, but if I'm in a rush, I skip it.)
4. Cut a piece of kitchen twine about 3 feet long.
5. Tie the end of the twine around one of the chicken legs and knot it.
6. Loop it around to the other leg and tie them together.
7. Tie it around one of the wings, then the other wing.
8. Tie a knot on the string to finish. You can tuck the tips of the wings under the string. The goal is to keep the legs and wings close to the breast – so it cooks evenly.
9. Place chicken in a roasting pan on a rack.
10. If adding optional vegetables, peel the onion, potatoes, and carrots and cut up into wedges. Add to roasting pan, around the sides of the pan, and add dabs of butter or a little olive oil or coconut oil (so they don't dry out).
11. Roast for 20-25 minutes. Reduce heat to 400°F and roast for an additional 30-45 minutes, or until the temperature registers 160°F in the thickest part of the thigh, and under the breast where the thigh meets the breast) and the juices run clear.
12. If necessary, return the bird to the oven for more roasting; check it every 5 minutes.
13. Transfer the roast chicken and optional vegetables to a cutting board or platter and allow to rest for 15-20 minutes before serving.

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