Roasting a whole chicken

I LOVE roasting chicken (I feel like I start every post by claiming I love something...)

Here I will walk you through what to do to make an awesome chicken.

Here she is, in all her glory. Preheat your oven to 425. Give her a good rinse and then pat dry with some paper towels. Proceed to tuck your hands under the wings and make her dance on the counter... Kidding, I mean WHO does that...

What you'll need:

1-2 T olive oil

1-2 lemons (I did 1 1/2)

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

2 T fresh cilantro (or whatever other fresh herb you have on hand!) + more to go inside the chicken

 Place your chicken in a pan and then drizzle with olive oil. Cut the lemons in half and squeeze the fresh lemons right onto the chicken. Rub around on the skin, you can even make her dance again if you like. Place one of the lemons right inside the chicken with an additional 2-3 tablespoons cilantro. Stick it right in there, where the sun doesn't shine.

You can place the other lemons beside the chicken in the pan.

 Then sprinkle the 2 T cilantro, garlic and onion powders right onto the chicken and rub into the skin.

Place the chicken inside the oven and roast for 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat down to 375 and roast an additional 50-60 minutes or until it registers 165 in the thigh. I never check the temperature, I just cut right at the leg to make sure the juices run clear, here's a picture:

 Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes before carving. We enjoyed this beautiful chicken with roasted cranberries with brown and wild rice with a side of asparagus.

Then any extra chicken pull off the bone and save for a meal later this week. I like to make Mexican with leftover chicken but this week I made a chicken and wild rice soup.

Once you've removed any extra meat, place the carcass (every single bone) of the chicken into a storage bag or you can throw it right into the crock pot to make bone broth! Bone broth is one of the best things you can feed your family (personal opinion...). I'm going to write a whole post on bone broth but I wanted to give you the heads up not to waste those beautiful bones.