Ingredients

Scale

- 1 whole fresh chicken

- your choice of seasonings/spices

- a bottle of your choice of salad dressing

and/or

- your choice of aromatics: cut up citrus, fresh herbs, etc.

- 1–2 tablespoons olive oil

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Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Rinse off your chicken after removing it from its packaging; pat dry and place in a gallon sized zip top storage bag. If your chicken won’t fit into a bag, place it in a baking dish or bowl.
3. Place your spice rubbed or marinated chicken onto a baking dish or roasting pan. If you don’t have a roasting rack, you can elevate the chicken by setting it on top of chopped up vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, etc) to allow fat to drip down and flavor them. Just before baking, drizzle the olive oil over the top of the chicken and gently rub it in. The oil will give the chicken a nice golden color as it bakes.
4. Once your chicken is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest for 10 minutes. This allows the juices to redistribute. Cutting the chicken right from the oven will result in dry chicken so give it some time to rest
5. You can eat the chicken as is and/or de-bone the chicken to use the meat in other ways such as casseroles, chicken salad, fillings for baked pastas (lasagna, stuffed shells, etc), filled Mexican inspired dishes (tacos, burritos, quesadillas, etc), Asian dishes (stir fries, fried rice, etc)… there’s so much you can do!Bake your chicken in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours – 2 hours, depending on the size of your bird. It may take longer too… but I test for doneness by using a meat thermometer (which you can get from your supermarket’s gadget aisle or any retail store like Walmart, Target, etc). The magic number is an internal temperature of 180 degrees.

Author: Joelen