Roast Spatchcock Chicken Recipe with Lemon and Herbs
Published December 31, 2018. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Be sure to try this amazing and incredibly easy to make Roast Spatchcock Chicken Recipe with Lemon and Herbs that is beyond delicious! It’s versatile and can be served up with just about any vegetable or side dish.
What is It
A spatchcock chicken is simply a flattened chicken where the backbone is removed, simple as that. The term breaks down into dispatch the cock, or chicken, splitting it open and ready for cooking.
While it’s traditionally grilled, you can absolutely roast it in the oven like I did in this recipe.
How to Spatchcock
Once you start appreciating every step of the cooking process you will truly learn to love cooking. While this recipe is incredibly classic, it does take over an hour to prepare. Enjoying the process has honestly taken so much time to appreciate and I never felt this way until about 5 to 6 years ago when I had time to focus on what I was cooking instead of tickets printing and a chef yelling at me to hurry up.
The video for this is a little long but man everything about this recipe is so good. To prepare the chicken you simply flip it over breast side down and using really sharp kitchen shears or a butcher’s knife remove the backbone by simply cutting or carving it out.
Once the backbone is removed flip it over and press it down to lay it flat. That’ll do it.
How to Make the Sauce
The lemon and herb chimichurri sauce is divine and the prep that goes into it amazing. When you are preparing the sauce stop and smell each herb. Taste each one. After chopping it, smell it and taste it again to see if it changed. Take your time while doing this sauce recipe and enjoy it. After you mix in the lemon and garlic, taste it, season it, and taste it again.
Set the lemon herb sauce to the side until it’s ready to be used. I called it chimichurri just because to me it’s what it resembles the most, and also this stuff freezes really well if you’ve got any extra leftover. Just a little FYI there.
How to Roast It
If you are a traditionalist like me, save the backbone from the chicken and freeze it because man you can make a delicious chicken stock with that long backbone piece so save it up. Drizzle on some olive oil all over the chicken to help it brown and you want to season all sides of the chicken with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Also, drizzle on about half of the lemon and herb chimichurri sauce all over the top of it. As it cooks the herbs are going to infuse into it making it so dang delicious. You could actually marinate it in the lemon herb mixture overnight if you wanted to as well. I personally like to use it more like a sauce at the end so that’s just my cup of tea but it does not have to be yours.
You want to roast this chicken at around 375° for a bit and then crank up the heat to help finish crisping up the skin before it’s ready to serve. Learn how to make this amazing Root Vegetable Panzanella Salad Recipe to go along with this recipe.
More Chicken Recipes
- Arroz Con Pollo Recipe
- Rotisserie Chicken Bravas Recipe
- Chicken Tinga Tacos Recipe
- Grilled Chicken Recipe
- Easy Jambalaya Recipe
Be sure to follow me on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest and if you’ve had a chance to make this then definitely drop me a comment and a rating below!
Video
Roast Spatchcock Chicken Recipe with Lemon and Herbs
Ingredients
For the Chicken:
- 3 tablespoons each finely minced fresh parsley, chives, thyme, rosemary and oregano
- 4 finely minced cloves of garlic
- zest and juice of 1 lemon
- ½ cup of olive oil + 2 tablespoons
- 1 whole chicken, backbone removed
- Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°.
- Chicken: In a medium size bowl whisk together the herbs, garlic, lemon and olive oil until combined to make a chimichurri style sauce and set aside.
- Place the flattened chicken on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and cover it on all sides with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, and ½ of lemon herb sauce. Bake skin side up for 50 minutes.
- After 25 minutes turn the chicken pan around so that it cooks evenly on all sides.
- After the 50 minutes is up turn the heat up to 425° and cook for 15 more minutes or until the skin is golden brown and cooked throughout.
- To Serve: Serve the chicken with the remaining lemon herb sauce and place the bread, greens and chilled root vegetables into a large bowl and dress with the desired amount of dressing, salt and pepper and optional garnishes micro-greens and goat cheese.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
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I made this tonight and I did use lemon, rosemary, garlic and honey compound butter under the skin of all the parts. I didn’t use the wings. I used those in a stock.
I followed you the rest of the way but didn’t need the 15 minutes at 425.
This came out fabulous and so juicy! I’m talking FABULOUS!
Thanks for another great recipe!
We love this recipe!!! We are making it twice a month 😁
Loved this recipe! Sauce is AMAZING!!! Thanks for sharing this recipe. It is a keeper.