The Secret To Perfect Roasted Chicken (Flavorful & Juicy)

Today I'm giving you guys all of the secrets and pro tips on how to make the perfect roast chicken right from the comfort of your own home. No more dry, boring, and bland birds. We're talking flavor-packed chicken with extra crispy skin, and I even got a secret sauce. Meet me in the kitchen. Let's make it happen. All right, people. First things first, let's talk about what makes a good chicken. To me, the skin's got to be crispy, it's got to be moist, it's got to be flavorful. A few ways that we're going to achieve those things is one, with a salt brine. We're going to add an adequate amount of salt to the chicken, put it in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours if you have the time. I would say at least two hours, though. We're also going to make a compound butter to baste the chicken. That's going to ensure that the chicken stays nice and moist, juicy, and flavorful. We're pairing this with some veggies so that chicken juice and the butter is going to drip down and flavor those veggies beautifully. You've got a full meal coming up in about an hour, hour and a half, depending on the size of your chicken. And then last but not least, my secret sauce, one of my favorites for poultry, Aji Verde. I'm going to show you guys how to make that. All chicken deserves a good sauce, and you guys are going to love this recipe. Dry brining is one of my favorite techniques to get good flavor and to help the protein retain moisture. We're going to need an adequate amount of salt. We're talking probably about a half a teaspoon or so per pound. This is about a five pound chicken, almost called it a turkey. We're going to go ahead and give it a good coating of salt and then get it in the fridge for at least 12 hours, up to 24. Dry brining is going to help retain moisture because the salt is naturally going to pull moisture out of the chicken, and then as it reabsorbs that moisture, it's going to take the salt with it. You're going to get flavor all the way down to the bone. This is my favorite way to do it because dry brining is going to render a nice crispy skin. A wet brine gets the flavor, but a lot of times the skin isn't as crispy as a dry brine. So you get the flavor and crispy skin. So this is my recommended technique here. Wet brine works nicely as well. It's a little bit messier, so I've been going with the dry brine method lately. You want to get salt all over this chicken, so we're going inside the cavity too. Just get it nice and salted all the way through. We want flavor all through this chicken, even the back. And then we're going to stuff the cavity with herbs like thyme, rosemary, some garlic. If you've got a shallot or an onion, you can use that. A little citrus in the form of lemon. It's going to add aromatics and flavor to the chicken, and it's also going to give a little bit more volume inside the cavity, helping it cook more evenly. All right guys, I know you've heard of one pot meals, but we'll call this one a one roasting pan meal. We have our veggies here. You can use whatever you like. Any vegetables you want. We got carrots today, onion. We got Brussels sprouts and potatoes. Again, use whatever veggies you like that roast well. These work really nicely, and they're pretty healthy. We're going to go ahead and peel the skin off of these carrots, cut them into bite-sized pieces, and do the same thing with the onions. We got petite red potatoes, so no real need to cut those. But if you have larger potatoes, you can cut them into bite-sized pieces as well. You want all your veggies to be about the same size. That way they cook at the same rate. We got our oven preheated at 425, which is the perfect temperature to roast a chicken. Also happens to be a great temperature to roast a veggie. Quick reminder, guys, that this recipe and all of my recipes can be found at MrMakeItHappen.com. So when it comes to seasoning the veggies, we'll hit them with some olive oil, about a tablespoon or two, and then the seasonings of your choice, really. I'm using my All Purpose, which is a blend of salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, a little Cajun seasoning, and this buttery garlic pepper seasoning. All really delicious on vegetables, but feel free to use whatever seasonings you like. If you do want to grab these, you can get them on my website, MrMakeItHappen.com. We're going to go ahead and add that olive oil to these veggies. Make sure they're nicely coated, and then we're going to season them up. Tons of flavor because the veggies are going to be underneath the chicken. So as that chicken cooks, the moisture and the juice are going to drip down onto the veggies along with the butter base that we're going to put on it as well. So tons of flavor all the way through the chicken, all the way through the veggies, and all the way through to you. So we did the salt brine already. We have the veggies in there. We got our bird all tied up and stuffed. We're going to go ahead and season the back side of the bird first because I like to season the presentation side last. That way it stays nice and evenly coated. Going to make it look nice. So get some adequate seasoning on this back of the bird. Flip it back over. We're using AP seasoning here. We got plenty of salt, and my AP seasoning is low sodium, so this works nicely. You can season it with other things. I just don't want it to get too dark because we are going to baste it with the compound butter later. So I want to be mindful of that. So we're just going to go nice light coating or dusting of this AP seasoning, and then she's ready for the oven. 425 until the breast reaches 160 to 165 degrees, and the dark meat reaches about 165 to 175. Last but not least, we're going to add about a cup to a cup and a half of good quality chicken broth. That's going to ensure that the veggies don't scorch in the oven. Most of this is going to evaporate. It's not going to like boil the veggies. You just want enough that the veggies don't burn up. Keep everything nice and moist. Into the oven it goes, 425. Next up for the compound butter, we'll keep it real simple. Things that work great with poultry. We have one stick of grass-fed butter. I like to use Kerrygold. Whatever's in the budget, though, you can use that. A good mound of garlic, tablespoon and a half or so, or whatever's left in the jar. Then we have some fresh herbs, the kind you cook with, not the kind that cook you. We got rosemary, thyme, and some fresh chopped parsley, all flavors that pair beautifully with poultry. We're going to go ahead and add that, and then my secret weapon, which is this buttery garlic pepper seasoning. Feel free to use whatever seasoning you like. You can make this like a barbecue style, use barbecue seasoning. Cajun compound butter, use Cajun seasoning. You can make it spicy, add a little cayenne. Whatever flavor profile you're into, you can adjust this to that. We're also going to add a little bit of chicken bouillon powder to elevate the chicken flavor and to add a little MSG. This is going to be that top layer of flavor that's really going to elevate the flavor profile overall. Next, we're going to go ahead and mix this together. You want to use room temperature butter. This is a little bit cold, but we're going to make it work. And we're just going to mix this until everything is well combined, and we're going to baste this over the chicken about halfway through. All right, guys. Next up, one of my favorite sauces for poultry and seafood is called Aji Verde. If you've ever had Peruvian chicken, you've had it before. This version is a lot better than what you get at most restaurants, and I'm going to show you guys how to make it. You're going to love it. It's good on wings. It's good on roast chicken. It's good on fish. I eat it all the time. We serve it at my restaurant in D.C., one of my favorites. And I've been gatekeeping it for all of these years, but today is yours. Going in with one cup of mayo, followed by a half cup of sour cream. I'm going to eyeball it because I've made this so many times, I could do it in my sleep. Cup of mayo, half cup of sour cream, one cup of cilantro. If you really hate cilantro, you can use parsley, but it's going to change the flavor profile a little bit. Then we're going to go in with one jalapeno as well. Optional. You can go heavier or lighter, depending on your spice tolerance. Then we have one of the secret ingredients, Aji Amarillo. I don't know how to say it properly, but this stuff is delicious. It's basically a Peruvian pepper paste. Really good stuff. You don't have to use this. You can make it without it. We actually don't use this at my restaurant. It still comes out great. But for authenticity's sake, this actually helps a lot. Two cloves of garlic as well going in. Make sure our limes are nice and soft so they'll be juicy. Half cup of sour cream. You can use all sour cream. You can also use Greek yogurt for this recipe or mayo. Alright, after we get all of that in there, we're going to go ahead and season it up. I'm going to add a little pinch of chicken bouillon powder just for the MSG factor and then some flavor enhancer, AP seasoning, or just some salt and pepper, and then some olive oil. We're going to blend it. You can use a Nutribullet, a hand blender, or a countertop blender, whatever you got. You're going to season it after you blend it up as well. That's an option. I'm going to add a little bit now and then a little bit more as needed. Alright guys, so we're a little bit over halfway there. Now is the perfect time to go ahead and start to baste this with that compound butter that we made. We're going to brush it over the chicken evenly. You don't want to go too heavy because we're going to baste this two or three times before it's fully done. I'm going to put this back in the oven. If you notice that it's starting to get a little too dark, you can cover it with some aluminum foil just to make sure the skin doesn't get too dark, and then remove the foil at the end and brown it up evenly. That butter is going to make sure that the chicken continues to brown a little bit more too. So just keep an eye on it. You want to make sure that it is nice and juicy, but you don't want it to get too dark because you want it to be pretty, right? So I'm going to cover this with foil for the last, you know, 15 to 20 minutes and then remove the foil, brush it one more time, and then let that skin crisp back up. All right, people, there you have it. The chicken is roasted to perfection, got some great color. When it comes out and you slice it up, you want to go ahead and hit it with a little finishing salt. If it needs it, you can always kind of taste the skin and see. Finishing salt is always a great technique, something that we do in the restaurant to make sure that when the food hits the palate, it's flavorful right out the gate. Plate it up with that sauce, the veggies. This is a delicious meal. It comes together in a couple hours max and you get a nice home-cooked meal, relatively inexpensive as well. One of the keys, though, when the chicken is done, give it a good 20, 25 minutes to really rest. Let those juices redistribute. That's going to make sure that the chicken stays nice and moist. And this is the part where I grab my fork and go in for that taste test. Brace yourself for a trademark money shot. Say it with me, guys. Looking good. The only thing left to do is dig in for that taste test, but before we do that, please take a quick second to subscribe to the channel. Make sure you hit that bell to enable notifications as well. Alright, folks. We got some aji verde. Make sure I get me a good healthy serving of that. Some carrot. Oh, the carrots are great. Brussels sprout. Give me some of that leg. That's my favorite part. When it comes to a rotisserie chicken, the leg is my favorite. It's followed by the breast with protein, but the leg, one of my favorites. Mmm.