How do you bake a chicken? If you’re looking for a simple, fool proof method for baking a chicken with no fancy recipe, this is the guide for you. Learn how to bake the perfect chicken with a nice, crispy crust every single time.
This is a simple guide to baking a chicken. Forget the big recipes and extensive list of ingredients. Let’s talk about the easy way to bake a chicken and get a nice crispy skin.
How to Bake a Chicken
We love baked chicken with a crispy skin and make one each Sunday. We use the left overs throughout the week for sandwiches and salads. It’s easy to bake a chicken with a crispy skin, it’s all in the preparation! Prepping your bird for the oven is important.
Baked Chicken Preparation
To prep your chicken, you’ll first remove the giblet bag, gizzard, and wash your chicken by rinsing it under running water. Once you’ve rinsed your chicken, pat it dry with a paper towel, don’t forget to dry the inside of the chicken too! Dry the chicken as much as you can, the key to a crispy skin is a dry chicken when it goes into the oven.
The next step is to rub the entire chicken, inside and out, with extra virgin olive oil. Oiling helps lock the moisture in while giving it a crispy skin.
Use seasonings such as salt, garlic, and pepper. Sprinkle your seasonings both inside and outside of your chicken for great flavoring and caramelization.
Baking a Chicken
Now that we have our bird prepped, the easy part begins. We’ll preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the chicken on the roasting rack in a roasting pan. Place it in the oven and bake it for 20 minutes per pound, plus 15 more minutes.
Our bird is 3 pounds, so we’re baking it for 75 minutes; which is 1 hour and 15 minutes. This will ensure it is cooked through. Once we have baked the chicken, we’ll insert a thermometer into the thickest part of the breast meat to make sure we have an internal temperature reading of at least 165 degrees.
Optional: When the chicken is done cooking, turn your oven’s broiler on. Slather your chicken with a little bit of your favorite BBQ sauce and put it under the broiler for about 5-10 minutes, keeping a close eye on it. This will give you a nice char on the outside – delicious indeed!
Tip: Don’t measure the temperature close to a bone, doing so will provide inaccurate results. Measure the temperature at the thickest, meatiest part of the chicken.
Remember – preheat your oven to 350, bake the chicken for 20 minutes per pound, plus an extra 15 minutes. This will help you bake a chicken to the right temperature every time!
- 3 lb whole chicken
- Extra virgin olive oil, enough to coat your bird, inside and out
- Salt, garlic powder, and pepper, to taste
- Preheat oven to 350º F.
- Remove any giblets and other parts from the chicken's cavity.
- Wash and dry the chicken thoroughly.
- Coat the bird, inside and out, with the extra virgin olive oil.
- Coat the chicken, inside and out, with salt, garlic powder, and pepper.
- Place on the roasting rack of your roasting pan and cook for 20 minutes per pound, plus 15 minutes total. This 3 pound chicken baked for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
We hope you enjoyed this easy “How to Bake a Chicken” tutorial from SoFabFood Expert, Andrew Eaton of Scrappy Geek. Be sure to stop back by often because we’ll be sharing more simple “how to’s” in the coming weeks. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so that you never miss a single recipe. For daily recipe inspiration, like us on Facebook and find us on Pinterest. Enjoy!
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