Chicken with Rosemary and Lemon Salt

It's taken a while, but Matt and I are quickly learning that buying a whole chicken is a lot cheaper than buying just chicken breasts...or wings...or whatever. I don't have a lot of experience cooking whole chickens, though, so I'm always on the lookout for an easy chicken recipe. I ran across this recipe - and it had three of my favorite things in it: lemon, rosemary & salt. It had to be good, right?

Chicken with Rosemary & Lemon Salt

Ingredients:
1 chicken, about 4 lbs

Seasoned Salt:
2 tbsp very finely minced lemon zest
2 tbsp minced fresh rosemary
2 tbsp sea salt
Several grinds of black pepper

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 - 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
1 1/2 lemons, cut into chunks

Assembly:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees, if you do not have a convection fan. If you do have a convection fan, preheat to 425 degrees. (A convection oven will produce a crispier skin - we used a regular oven & the skin turned out just fine.)

Rinse the chicken inside & out; dry well.

Make the salt: In a bowl, combine the zest, rosemary, salt & pepper. Mix well. Rub the chicken all over with the olive oil, and then rub with 3 tbsp of the seasoned salt. (You can save the rest of the salt for oven fries, another chicken, or even lamb. It'll keep in the fridge for a while, or in the freezer for a month. Or you can be like me and use ALL of the salt on one chicken.)

Tuck the rosemary sprigs and lemon chunks into the chicken cavity. You do not need to truss the chicken.

Place on a rack in a roasting pan and roast for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temp by 75 degrees and continue to roast until the juices run clear with a thigh is pierced with a skewer - about 50 - 55 minutes longer. Transfer the chicken to a platter and let rest 15 minutes before carving.

Note: Typically, I use a citrus zester to zest lemons. However, the recipe states if you use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest (yellow part only) from the lemons, and then mince finely, you'll get a drier result, which is better for the salt rub.

We had this with some veggies & mashed potatoes - and it was fab. You could even use the leftover chicken in a salad for lunch...or eat it cold right out of the leftover container!