Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken

Remember earlier this month when I mentioned that Dave and I don't exist on sugar and butter alone?  Well, here's the proof--I actually cook real food from time to time.  And my favorite way make real food is to use my crock pot.  I super dooper love my crock pot.  It's so easy to throw a meal together in the morning or the night before and let my crock pot make dinner while I'm at work or busy with other stuff.  Plus is makes the house smell so good.  And this recipe is a perfect way to make a beautiful meal in just a few minutes.  I've never actually roasted a chicken in the oven because it's just too easy to do it in the crock pot.  The lemon and garlic in this recipe are complimented by the herbs and the meat is juicy and completely falls apart.  A little messy for a pretty table presentation, but tasty and easy nonetheless.

A friend of mine turned me onto Stephanie O'Dea's blog a couple of years ago when Stephanie challenged herself to use her crock pot every day for a year and blog the recipes.  While I'm not quite as hard-core as Stephanie, there are currently 5 crock pots in my house and I've been known to run more than one (or two) at a time.  Stephanie has a lot of wonderful recipes for crock pot beginners and more experienced cooks.  Since I didn't have any fresh rosemary I used dry, but otherwise I followed the recipe, right down to skinning the chicken first (with all the butter I go through, I do try to cut the fat and calories when possible).  I served this with jasmine rice and green beans for a simple dinner that was both healthy and tasty.



Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken

Ingredients

1 3-4 pound whole chicken, thawed and skinned
1 head of garlic
2 lemons
a bunch fresh rosemary or 2-3 Tablespoons dried rosemary
salt and pepper as desired

Clean and rinse chicken.  Pat dry.  Rub salt and pepper all over outside and inside of chicken.  Place chicken in a 4-5 quart crock pot.

Separate garlic cloves and peel. Here's the easy way: put the clove on a cutting board and lay the blade of a wide knife on top (sharp side facing away from you); press down on the blade to crack the skin of the clove.  Remove your knife and peel the cracked skin away from the garlic.

Shove about half the cloves into the cavity of the chicken.  Put the rest of the cloves around the chicken.


Wash and slice the lemons.  Place the slices on top, inside and around the chicken.

Sprinkle rosemary all over chicken.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

When finished cooking, remove lemon slices and discard.  Slice chicken and serve.

Makes 1 roasted chicken, serving 4-6.

Happy Baking,
The Cookie Princess

Printer Friendly Recipe

Pin It