A chicken needn’t be roasted whole. Often, we turn to roasting individual parts—a largely walkaway approach that allows you to use whatever combination of parts you want. To encourage crispy skin and avoid the flabbiness that plagues some recipes, we brushed the parts with melted butter and roasted them in a 450-degree oven, elevating them on a wire rack to let the fat render away. Using bone-in, skin-on parts insulated the meat, ensuring it would stay juicy in the hot oven. Because dark meat cooks slower than white meat (and should be cooked to 175 degrees rather than 160 degrees for white), be prepared to remove different cuts at different times, or simply roast all breasts, or all thighs, and so on. Rubbing herb butter under the skin adds incredible flavor, but you can skip it if you prefer. Serve with lemon wedges.
Ingredients
4 pounds bone-in chicken pieces (split breasts, whole legs, thighs, and/or drumsticks), trimmed
of excess fat and skin
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 2 tablespoons melted
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme, rosemary, tarragon, or sage
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
Salt and pepper
Cooking Procedure
- Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and set wire rack in baking sheet.
- Mix softened butter with herbs, lemon zest, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper in small bowl.
- Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Use your fingers to carefully separate skin from meat on chicken pieces. Rub butter mixture underneath skin of chicken. Arrange chicken, skin side up, on prepared wire rack. Brush chicken with melted butter and season with salt and pepper.
- Roast until thermometer inserted into breasts registers 160 degrees, about 30 minutes, and legs, thighs, and/or drumsticks register 175 degrees, about 30 minutes for drumsticks and 45 minutes for legs and thighs. Transfer chicken to cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes.
Variation-Roasted Chicken Parts with Honey and Mustard
Instead of lemon-herb-butter mixture, mix ¼ cup Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons honey, and 1 teaspoon packed brown sugar together in bowl. Brush over chicken several times during last 5 minutes of cooking.
Variation-Roasted Chicken Parts with Five-Spice Powder and Ginger
Instead of lemon-herb-butter mixture, mix 3 tablespoons softened unsalted butter with 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger, 1 teaspoon five-spice powder, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper in bowl. Rub butter mixture underneath skin of chicken.
Chef's Tips - (POULTRY) SKIN IN THE GAME
When cooking poultry, we recommend that you either make sure the skin ends up nice and crispy or remove it before serving. Flabby chicken or turkey skin is unappealing and unattractive; it isn’t something anyone wants to eat or see on the plate. But the crisp, well-browned skin on a great roast chicken can be the best part of the dish. That’s because when you sauté or roast the skin and it reaches temperatures over 300 degrees, a set of reactions take place in its fats and proteins to produce hundreds of deeply flavorful compounds.
Chef's Tips - The Keys to Crisp Skin
In order to get the skin as crisp as possible, you need to render all the fat between the skin and the meat. Tricks like elevating the poultry on a rack while cooking in the oven help with this, as does cutting slashes in the skin. You can also brown the skin in a hot skillet and then finish cooking the chicken in the skillet over a lower temperature, or in the even heat of the oven (this has the added benefit of creating flavorful browned bits—fond—in the skillet, great for making a pan sauce). When the skin is fully cooked it will not only turn a lovely golden brown color, it will also get super crispy, almost like a potato chip. When you’re trying to gauge doneness, watch for both the color and the texture of the skin to change.
Chef's Tips - Shedding the Skin
Chicken skin is like a raincoat: It’s an effective barrier, keeping what’s outside out and what’s inside in. This is especially important in oven-roasted recipes, where the skin helps protect delicate white meat in the hot oven, but if you don’t want to serve the skin you can remove and discard it before serving. Chicken skin is slippery; to simplify the task, use a paper towel to provide extra grip when pulling off the skin. For stews and braises, if you don’t crisp the skin and render the fat, you should typically discard the skin before cooking. If you don’t, the fat will render into the stew or sauce, which could make it overly greasy.
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