How to Make Baked Chicken

The nice thing about roasting/baking a chicken for dinner is that you can put it in the pan, add the spices and a little water, cover it with a lid or aluminum foil and put it in the oven where the chicken will practically take care of itself. You may choose to stuff your chicken with boxed or homemade stuffing before putting it in the oven. If you do just follow the directions on the the stuffing package.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Whole, or roasting chicken, 4 - 6 lbs.
• 1 t. poultry seasoning
• 1 t. garlic powder
• 1 T. onion powder
• 1 t. marjoram
• 1 t. sweet basil
• 1 t. salt
• Alternative: 3 T. of a salt free spice mix like Mrs. Dash, that includes the most or all of the spices.
• 2T dried celery
• Roasting pan or other oven safe dish that will hold the chicken easily.
• Bulbed meat baster
• empty salt or cheese/spice shaker

1. Turn your oven on to 365 degrees so that it can begin preheating. Measure your spices and mix them together in a cheese/spice or extra salt shaker and set them aside. If you choose to use a pre packaged salt free spice mix you can measure that directly from the container.

2. 

   Peel away any fat located under the skin that you see. Remove the giblets if they are included with the chicken. The giblets are the heart, gizzard, and liver and they are usually in a paper sack inside the chicken. Set them aside. Then flush out the inside of the chicken with water, scrub the outside of the chicken with a vegatable, or small hand brush, and pat it dry.

3. 

   Place the chicken in the pan you will be using to roast/bake it in. Take the spices and sprinkle them all over the top of the chicken. Pour just enough water into the bottom of the pan to cover it. (As the chicken bakes/roasts the juices and fat from the chicken will add to the water). This is when you will want to stuff the chicken if you want the stuffing to cook at the same time as the chicken.

4. Cover the chicken with tin foil or a lid and place into the oven. Every 30 minutes pull the chicken out of the oven and draw some of the water/chicken juices from the bottom of the pan and squirt it all over the top of the chicken. If you have stuffed the chicken you may want to inject some of the broth into the cavity of the chicken, as well.

5. The chicken should be done within an hour and thirty minutes to two hours. Insert a meat fork into the chicken's breast. If clear liquid runs or oozes out, then the chicken is done. Then you can remove the chicken from its pan and place it on a large plate or serving platter.

6. Gently scoop the stuffing out of the inside of the chicken with a table spoon or small serving spoon and place it into a separate dish before serving.

Tips & Warnings

• Some companies will denote if the chicken is a young chicken. Younger chickens usually have less fat. The more yellow tinged the skin of the chicken, the more likely it is to have more fat.
• Consider purchasing a roast pan with a rack that sits inside if you do not have one. You can lift the rack out of the pan without having to worry about the drippings or the chicken falling apart.
• The giblets can either be thrown away or cooked over slow heat in two cans of fat free chicken broth for use in gravy. You may like to eat them as well. The liver is very high in iron.
• You can add minced onion and real celery to the water around the chicken to help flavor the meat if you wish.
• Remove the chicken from both the oven and the pan carefully so that the juices do not splatter and burn you.

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