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Simple, golden and endlessly versatile. The most hardworking bird in your kitchen – the humble, yet most perfect roast chicken.

There are fancier roast chicken recipes out there. This isn’t one of them – and that’s entirely the point. This is the version you come back to again and again because it works every single time, it costs very little, and one bird will feed you well across several meals throughout the week. Sunday roast, weekday sandwiches, pasta, salads – it all starts here.

Serves 4 – 6 | Prep time: 10 mins | Cook time: 1 hr 20 mins – 1 hr 40 mins depending on bird size

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How make Perfect Roast Chicken

Ingredients:

1 medium or large whole chicken
Generous glug of olive oil
Salt and pepper
Mixed dried herbs
Half a lemon
Optional but lovely: Fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme or tarragon work beautifully

Method:

Prepare the chicken. Take the chicken out of the fridge about 30 minutes before cooking to bring it closer to room temperature – this helps it cook more evenly. Pat the skin dry with kitchen paper, then coat generously with olive oil. Season well with salt, pepper and mixed herbs all over the skin. If you have fresh herbs or half a lemon to hand, stuff them into the cavity for extra flavour – but don’t let not having them stop you.

Roast. Place in a roasting tin and cook at 200°C. Baste with the juices from the tin halfway through – it makes the skin even more golden. A medium chicken will take around 1 hour 20 minutes at 200°C, but if you prefer a hot and fast approach, crank the oven up to 220°C and baste every 20 minutes or so. You can get a medium bird done in closer to an hour this way, making a mid-week roast after work absolutely doable. Keep a close eye on it and check the juices run clear before resting. The higher heat gives you a beautifully golden, crispy skin too.

Check it’s done. Pierce the thickest part of the thigh with a sharp knife and press gently. The juices should run completely clear with no pink. The drumsticks should also wobble and come away from the bird easily. If you have a meat thermometer, you’re looking for 75°C at the thickest point.

Rest – but read this first. If you want crispy skin from your perfect roast chicken, strip this from the bird and eat it immediately. If you’re meal prepping or don’t mind softer skin, cover loosely the whole chicken including the skin with foil and a couple of tea towels and rest for at least 20 – 30 minutes before shredding. Resting makes the meat significantly more tender and easier to pull apart. The skin will soften if it’s left on during the resting process.

Shred and store. Pull all the meat from the carcass and store in an airtight container in the fridge. It’ll keep well for 3–4 days and is endlessly useful across the week.

Don’t just throw the carcass away. Pop it in a pot with water, a roughly chopped onion, a carrot, celery and some peppercorns and simmer for a couple of hours for a beautiful homemade chicken stock. The roasting juices from the tin are brilliant added in too or you can set these aside for a specific dish. I’ll often throw them into other meals like chicken fajitas or soup vs using shop-bought stock.

A few notes:

The resting step is genuinely important. It’s the difference between meat that’s juicy and tender and meat that’s dry. Don’t skip it. It’s often why people say their turkey at Christmas is dry too. It’s almost always a lack of resting time that causes it.

Crispy skin or tender shredded meat – you don’t always get both, so just decide upfront which you’re going for and cook accordingly.

This is one of the most economical things you can make. One bird, roasted on a Sunday, can become a pasta on Monday, sandwiches on Tuesday and a soup or risotto on Wednesday using the stock. It’s proper nose-to-tail cooking without any of the fuss. The perfect roast chicken to get you through the week, or it can still act as an impressive centrepiece for a traditional Sunday roast.