This Herb-Roasted Spatchcock Chicken is a weeknight dinner miracle! It’s easy to make and is so flavorful. If you take anything away from this post: please always spatchcock your chicken! Doing so ensures even cooking, no dry meat, and cuts the cook time in half!
“This recipe turned out awesome. The skin was sooo crispy, it was basically chips! My bird was a bit bigger, closer to 7 lbs so I had to add 10ish minutes to the overall cooking time. All that herb butter was heavenly. Will make again any time I want to roast a full bird.” – Andrew (So Much Food reader)
Table of contents
- What’s a Spatchcock Chicken? Here’s Why I Love This Method
- Jenny’s Tip: Invest in Quality Kitchen Shears
- How to Spatchcock a Chicken for Roasting (+ Video Tutorial)
- My Other Secret to Perfectly Roasted Chicken: A Dry Brine!
- A Quick Overview of How to Roast a Spatchcock Whole Chicken
- My Favorite Side Dishes for Roast Chicken
- More Recipes to Make with a Whole Chicken
What’s a Spatchcock Chicken? Here’s Why I Love This Method
Unfamiliar with spatchcocking? It’s a fancy term for a very simple cooking method.
The backbone of the chicken is removed prior to cooking using a good pair of kitchen shears. Doing so causes the bird to lay flat and thus everything cooks at the same rate!
Here’s why else I much prefer cooking a spatchcock chicken in the oven:
- Faster cooking. In a 425ºF oven, a whole chicken takes an hour and a half to cook to the proper internal temperature. A spatchcocked chicken takes just 40 minutes. That’s less than half the time!
- Even cooking. With the bird laid out flat, everything cooks at the same speed. Say goodbye to dry chicken breasts, folks!
- More flavor. It’s much easier to season every nook and cranny of the chicken, hence a more flavorful end product.
Jenny’s Tip: Invest in Quality Kitchen Shears
This is the pair of poultry shears I have and I love them! They cut through skin and bone with no issues and don’t slip in my hands when I’m trying to make tough cuts. A good pair of poultry shears doesn’t have to set you back tons of money!
Do you need to use shears? No… but your life will be much easier if you do. You can use a sharp chef’s knife to spatchcock a chicken, but I find it to be much more dangerous.
How to Spatchcock a Chicken for Roasting (+ Video Tutorial)
- Place the chicken on a large cutting board and pat the chicken dry with paper towels.
- Arrange the chicken breast-side down on the cutting board with the legs facing towards you.
- Using good-quality kitchen shears, cut along one side of the chicken spine, separating it from the ribs. Be sure to cut as close to the spine as you can so that you do not end up discarding any more of the chicken meat than necessary. Repeat on the other side of the spine.
- Flip the chicken so that the breasts face upward and the chicken legs face outward. Using the palm of your hands, press along the breast bone. You might hear a small crack. This should flatten the chicken completely.
My Other Secret to Perfectly Roasted Chicken: A Dry Brine!
This oven roasted spatchcock chicken is dry-brined, and you can read all about why that’s so much better than wet-brining in my roasted turkey breast recipe. It creates less mess, takes up less space, and gives way better flavor, and yields crispy skin (just to name a few).
I actually go a step further in this dry brine and ask you to add… BAKING POWDER. I know that sounds insane, but it’s only a tiny amount and you will not taste it. The slightly alkaline mixture raises the skin’s pH levels, which allows proteins to break down more efficiently, giving you crisper, more evenly browned results.
The baking powder can be omitted if it freaks you out, but please make this recipe once as written and I promise you’ll love it!
Can I use baking soda instead of baking powder?
Absolutely not. Baking soda will give off a very unpleasant metallic taste. While you’re at it, make sure it’s an aluminum-free baking powder.
A Quick Overview of How to Roast a Spatchcock Whole Chicken
- Dry brine the chicken for at least 8 hours. Don’t cover the chicken as it brines in the fridge; you want the skin to dry out so it becomes super crispy once roasted.
- Rub with garlic herb butter. Set your butter out so it comes to room temperature for easy spreading. I used fresh herbs for my spatchcock roast chicken, but dried may be substituted in a pinch.
- Roast until the thickest part is 160ºF. A brief rest after coming out of the oven will bring the chicken up to a safe-to-consume temperature of 165ºF.
My Favorite Side Dishes for Roast Chicken
- Lemon Dill Potato Salad
- Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes
- Roasted Carrots with Whipped Feta
- Cheddar Chive Biscuits
- Buttery Boiled Corn
- Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
If you do give this recipe a try, I love hearing about it! Leave a comment with a star rating below. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter and never miss a new recipe! You can also snap a photo & tag @JENNYGOYCOCHEA on Instagram.
More Recipes to Make with a Whole Chicken
- Beer Can Chicken
- Dutch Oven Roast Chicken
- Pollo Asado (Mexican Grilled Chicken)
- Whole Chicken Orzo Soup
This post may contain affiliate links from which I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate links allow me to keep providing great recipes for free and I never recommend products that I don’t love and personally own.
Herb-Roasted Spatchcock Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
Chicken and Dry Brine
- 4-5 lb whole chicken, spatchcocked (see notes above)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder, (optional, see notes above)
Garlic Herb Butter
- 4 tablespoons 1/2 stick good-quality salted butter, at room temperature
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh chives, minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
Instructions
Spatchcock the chicken:
- Place the chicken on a large cutting board and pat the chicken dry with paper towels. Arrange the chicken breast-side down on the cutting board with the legs facing towards you.
- Using good-quality kitchen shears, cut along one side of the chicken spine, separating it from the ribs. Be sure to cut as close to the spine as you can so that you do not end up discarding any more of the chicken meat than necessary. Repeat on the other side of the spine.
- Flip the chicken so that the breasts face upward and the chicken legs face outward. Using the palm of your hands, press along the breast bone. You might hear a small crack. This should flatten the chicken completely.
Dry brine the chicken:
- In a small bowl, mix together the kosher salt, pepper, and baking powder.
- Place your chicken on a rimmed baking sheet or in a large baking dish. Gently pull the skin away from the meat to create a little space between the skin and meat. Sprinkle the dry brine liberally all over the chicken, including under the skin and on the underside. Gently rub the salt mixture into the meat until it’s well coated. Transfer to the refrigerator uncovered for 8-12 hours (up to 24).
Assemble and roast:
- Preheat an oven to 425ºF. In a small bowl, mix together the softened butter and herbs until well combined. Remove the chicken from the fridge and spread the butter all over the chicken, including under the skin. Make sure it's well coated!
- Transfer the chicken to a large skillet or a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil. Roast for 45-55 minutes, or until the thickest part of the chicken thigh registers at 160 on a meat thermometer. Change the oven setting to broil and broil for 3-5 minutes for extra golden brown skin. Remove from the oven and rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing and serving.
Notes
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Rate & Review This Recipe
This recipe turned out awesome. The skin was sooo crispy, it was basically chips! My bird was a bit bigger, closer to 7 lbs so I had to add 10ish minutes to the overall cooking time. All that herb butter was heavenly. Will make again any time I want to roast a full bird.
[…] dinner on the table faster with less effort. What a win-win, amiright? You can read more about it here. Below is a quick video on how to do it, turn the sound on while I walk you through […]
We made this and it was amazing! Typically we are very lazy cooks and do what’s easiest. This typically means throwing the chicken in the oven and being done. This did not take much additional prep AND MAN OH MAN did it make a difference in the taste. We will never bake a chicken any other way than this. LOVED it!
This is my second time making this recipe and it will definitely be a staple in our house. The prep is so easy and the flavor/tenderness from the chicken is amazing. I love the way the skin gets an even crispiness to it from the spatchcock as well. Highly recommend giving this one a try!
This was really great!!!!! My family loved it. I made a pan sauce with the drippings for pieces that hadn’t come in direct contact with the brine & butter, but much of the meat was flavorful enough to not need anything. My 6 1/2 lb bird took an extra 20 minutes for the breast meat but thanks to the spatchcock, none of it overcooked and the skin crisped up nicely.
Technique question – what’s the best way to get the butter spread well but really sticking to skin and not just to itself? It brined 8 hours, I took it out of fridge & patted it dry. Is a room temp bird skin easier to spread the butter on? Or making the butter colder for a better temp. match with the bird? Thanks
Kathy,
Thank you so much for your comment! I am thrilled that you enjoyed the recipe!
In terms of the butter, I make sure my butter is suuuper soft, but not melted. Sometimes I’ll pop in in the microwave for a second before I mix the herbs in. I like to just throw gloves on and use my hands to really make sure the bird is well coated. Hope that helps!
Easy to make and SO good. Just prepped it and threw it in the oven. Delicious!
So happy you loved this recipe!
I’m not sure what you did but mine took over an hour to cook and I had to take it up to 500 the last 30 minutes.
Could just be that your bird was larger than the one I used, or that your oven runs cooler than the stated temperature. Highly recommend using an oven thermometer to determine if that’s the case. For instance, my oven runs 10-15 degrees cooler, so I know that I typically have to set it at a higher temperature than what the recipe calls for. Hope that helps!
We love cooking our chicken this way! Thank you for these instructions and recipe. I have shared this with quite a few people now. For meal prepping, we bake two chickens at the same time. When they cool off enough to handle, we debone and put the chicken meat in one bag and the skin and bones in another bag. We freeze the skin and bones to be used for chicken broth. This adds such a wonderful flavor to the broth!
So happy you’re finding the recipe useful! I do the same as I love having shredded chicken on hand and bones to make broth.
beautiful recipe baking soda tip is great I have to try it
it really helps the skin get super crispy!
Easy and delicious! I used the dry herbs and I think fresh would have been much better but I took the lazy way. Definitely making this again. Thanks for sharing.