37 Roast Chicken Recipes for Cozy Everyday Dinners (2024)

Roast chicken is a fantastic dish for an easy dinner any night of the week. Preparation is as simple as adding in some fresh herbs and popping it in the oven. This collection of our favorite roasted chicken dishes includes incredible recipes such as Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken, Brined Roast Chicken with Olive Bread Panzanella, and Umami-Mayo Roast Chicken. Turn on your oven and get ready for the comforting, warming aroma of a deliciously browned roast chicken.

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Roast Chicken with Chile-Basil Vinaigrette, Charred Broccoli, and Potatoes

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Chef Hillary Sterling's epic chicken at Vic's in New York got its juiciness and deep flavor from brining, air drying, and marinating. The process is simple but does require some planning — start at least a day ahead. She served the bird on a mix of charred broccoli, onions, and fingerling potatoes, fiery from the chiles and fresh from the basil, with a bright kick of red wine vinegar.

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Roast Chicken with Cilantro-Mint Chutney

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Roast chicken, whole or separated into pieces, benefits brilliantly from chutney-based marinades. You make the chutney and reserve half as your dipping sauce, while the other half gets folded into creamy, tangy yogurt to make a flavorful marinade for the chicken.

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Butter-Roasted Chicken with Soy-Garlic Glaze

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For this recipe, we make a spiced butter with ground cloves and star anise, then rub it under the chicken skin before roasting to create an incredibly juicy and delicious bird.

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Poblano Pimento Cheese-Roasted Chicken

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Ashley Christensen, the chef at Poole's in North Carolina, kicks up her pimento cheese with spicy poblanos and green hot sauce. In this brilliant riff, the creamy dip is spread under the skin of a whole bird before it's roasted to get both crispy skin and juicy meat.

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Roast Chicken and Warm Escarole Caesar

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This roast chicken from the menu at Dusek's in Chicago is a sleeper hit, combining comforting roast chicken and the briny flavors of Caesar salad for a cozy meal. Marinating the chicken for at least 24 hours in a koji marinade makes it nice and juicy, while infusing it with tons of flavor.

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Zuni Chicken (Roast Chicken with Bread Salad)

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The iconic recipe for Zuni Café’s Roast Chicken with Bread Salad by the late, great Judy Rodgers stands the test of time. Pre-seasoning the bird guarantees succulent meat and salty, crispy skin; the bread salad is punctuated with currants and tempered with slightly bitter chicories. It’s the perfect thing to eat on a Sunday night.

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Umami-Mayo Roast Chicken

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The secret to this juicy roast chicken is umami mayo, a two-ingredient powerhouse combination of brewer's yeast and mayonnaise. Slathering the bird with a mayonnaise–brewer's yeast mixture before it goes into the oven yields maximal umami flavor. It also helps lock in its juiciness. Letting the chicken stand uncovered in the refrigerator overnight dries out the skin for a crispier bird.

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Roasted Chicken Legs with Potatoes and Kale

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For this one-pan dish, chicken legs roast on a bed of potatoes and kale so the meaty juices keep the vegetables moist. Prep takes just 10 minutes and the resulting meal serves eight or makes for excellent leftovers. There's very little clean-up as everything bakes up together and can be served straight from the pan.

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Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken

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Chefs Evan and Sarah Rich of RT Rotisserie in San Francisco make the very best chicken. They use a buttermilk brine that includes umami powder, garlic, and Douglas fir — a signature ingredient from their flagship restaurant, Rich Table, that they forage themselves. In this adaptation, the chicken is roasted in the oven, and the brine is made with buttermilk, dried porcini, garlic, and rosemary. If you have access to Douglas fir sprigs, feel free to use them.

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Chicken Roasted on Bread with Caperberries and Charred Lemon

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In this super-simple dish from F&W Culinary Director at Large Justin Chapple, chicken legs roast on top of torn pieces of bread that absorb the rich and tangy juices, becoming deliciously crisp and chewy.

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Honey and Lemon-Glazed Roast Chicken

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"I'm crazy for chicken," winemaker Piero Incisa della Rocchetta says. "I regularly eat a whole one by myself." Inspired by beautifully browned Peking duck, he brushes chickens with a mixture of soy sauce and honey.

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Roast Chicken with Salsa Verde and Roasted Lemons

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This crisp and juicy roast chicken from star chef Jonathan Waxman of NYC's Jams is perfect with his chunky seven-herb salsa verde. For ease of preparation, make the salsa a day ahead.

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Roast Chicken with Butternut Squash

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Chicken quarters roasted with golden squash and sage are nice for a chilly autumn evening. To help the squash to brown evenly, be sure to spoon off the fat from the roasting pan after removing the breasts. This is a case where less is more: A thin layer of fat will brown the vegetable better than a quarter-inch of it.

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Butter-Roasted Chicken with Cilantro and Mint

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Rubbing butter on chicken skin (as well as under it) and letting it sit in the fridge for a few hours is a great way to make it extra crispy, with moist breast meat. In this recipe from the late, great chef Floyd Cardoz, the butter is flavored with cilantro, garlic, mint, chiles, cumin, and lime juice.

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Ginger-Roasted Chicken

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For this flavorful dish, we first rub a seasoned garlic-ginger butter under and atop the skin, then roast the bird with more garlic and ginger, onion, serrano chiles, and lime. Try pairing this roasted chicken with an aromatic Riesling.

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Roast Chicken with Tangerines

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This six-pound bird yields a lot of meat. But if you want even more, get a capon (a castrated rooster). They're quite huge: 9 to 11 pounds. You'll have to increase the amount of ingredients relative to the size of the bird, which will also take longer to cook.

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Sour Orange Yucatán Chickens

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This fragrant roasted chicken dish starts with a spiced citrus marinade that includes 20 garlic cloves and ancho chile powder. After it's marinated overnight, the chicken is brushed with honey and baked to perfection. The pan juices get cooked with a bit more honey to make a sauce for serving.

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Brined Roast Chicken with Olive Bread Panzanella

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This is a fantastic roast chicken, but the real star in the recipe is the olive bread, which gets spread in the roasting pan and toasted in the chicken pan juices. The bread turns custardy on the inside and crunchy on the outside.

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Tea-Smoked Roast Chickens

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"This recipe looks like a doozy, but it really delivers," says James Beard Award-winning chef Andrea Reusing. "The chickens are just so reliably juicy, even when they're cooked longer than they should be." Smoking the birds quickly over anise-scented tea makes them wonderfully fragrant.

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Moroccan Roasted Chicken

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This roasted chicken is redolent of a warm spice blend made from cumin, coriander, sweet paprika, cayenne, and cinnamon. Tangy dried apricots and sweet dates mingle with garlic and onion during the roast to create even more depth of flavor.

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Aleppo Pepper and Mint Roasted Chicken

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Butter combined with garlic, scallions, Aleppo pepper, lemon zest, and mint gets rubbed under the chicken skin; tart lemon juice marries with the drippings to baste the bird as it roasts. The result is fresh, zingy, and deeply satisfying.

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Julia's Favorite Roast Chicken

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The beloved chef Julia Child seasoned this roast chicken inside and out by packing sautéed vegetables, lemon slices, and fresh herbs into the cavity, then rubbing the skin with butter. In typical French fashion, she trussed the bird to promote even cooking.

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Chilaquiles-Style Roasted Chicken Legs

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Chilaquiles is a baked Mexican dish that's often made with leftover shredded chicken, tortilla strips, and cheese. In this more substantial and refined version, we bake whole chicken legs with tomatoes, hominy, jalapeños, and tortilla chips.

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Pan-Roasted Chicken with Corn Relish

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This one-skillet recipe is based on a dish chef Cathal Armstrong's father, Gerry, made when Armstrong was growing up in Dublin, with a big difference. "We only got fresh corn for our birthdays. Otherwise it was frozen," he recalls.

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Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Mole Negro

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Oaxaca is famous for its complex mole sauces, often made with more than 20 ingredients, like unsweetened chocolate, seeds, and chiles. Since moles are so time-consuming to make, most Mexican cooks rely on the prepared pastes sold at the outdoor markets, and chef Alejando Ruíz Olmedo is no exception. Instead of stewing chicken in the mole, he takes a more elegant approach: He roasts chicken breasts until the skin is crisp and serves the mole alongside.

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Vinegar-Braised Chicken with Leeks and Peas

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This easy main-course chicken dish is elegant enough for both entertaining and a simple weeknight dinner. White balsamic, fresh tarragon, and a hefty dollop of crème fraîche round out the mellow leeks and sweet baby peas in the glorious pan sauce.

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Spice-Rubbed Roast Chicken with Two Sauces

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This crisp-skinned, juicy chicken is rubbed with a fennel-lemon mixture before roasting and served with smoky piri piri and spicy, herb-flecked wasakaka sauces.

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Rustic Garlic Chicken

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Yes, three heads of garlic. You don't have to peel the cloves first. They soften during cooking and take on a subtle sweetness. Each person squeezes the garlic out of its skin onto the plate to eat with the chicken.

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Roast Chicken with Ratatouille

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Thyme, rosemary, and cayenne flavor chef Andrew Zimmern's chicken before and during roasting. By roasting pieces rather than a whole bird, no carving is necessary.

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Crispy Roast Chicken and Shallots with Miso Gravy

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This wonderful roast chicken is made with eight whole shallots — seven to bake with the chicken and one to perfume the exquisite miso gravy along with ginger, chives, and parsley.

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Cardamom Chicken with Rice Pilaf

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Sprinkled with cardamom, roasted until crisp, and topped with an apple-tinged sauce, chicken legs become extraordinary. The chicken is perfectly matched by the raisin-studded rice pilaf that's also flavored with cardamom.

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Roast Chicken Thighs with Tomato-Tapioca Porridge

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Pioneering chef Wylie Dufresne serves his delicious crisp-skinned chicken with a simple, flavorful tomato-tapioca porridge. He created the dish when he was challenged as a Top Chef Masters contestant to prepare a fast recipe.

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Herb and Lemon Roasted Chicken

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This roast chicken is foolproof and fantastic. Plus, it's versatile enough for a weeknight dinner or weekend dinner party. Serve it with a crisp, citrusy Sauvignon Blanc.

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Whole Roast Chicken with 40 Brussels Sprouts

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We add brussels sprouts to the roasting pan so they absorb the fantastic flavor of the caraway-infused chicken juices as everything bakes.

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Quick-Roasted Chicken with Mustard and Garlic

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For this delicious, mustardy chicken, master chef Jacques Pépin splits the chicken and cuts between the leg and shoulder joints to halve the cooking time.

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Roast Chicken with Port and Figs

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Dried figs are poached in port to make a luscious Portuguese-inspired sauce that pairs with roast chicken, a meal perfect for the first fall nights. Ruby port provides the best color, and tawny would also work well.

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Lola's Roast Chicken with Sambal Chimichurri

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These juicy roast chickens are marinated in a tangy, garlic-laden, Puerto Rican-style marinade. "It's the vinegar that makes you want to keep eating," chef Bill Kim says. "That flavor lingers and haunts you."

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