Spatchcock Chicken (Roasted with Potatoes)
Using the spatchcock cooking methos is truly, one of the best ways to make delicious, flavorful, and juicy chicken!
What is spatchcock chicken, you ask? To put it simply, a “spatchcock” chicken is basically a butterflied chicken. To spatchcock the chicken means to remove the back bone and butterfly it out.
This technique helps the chicken cook evenly throughout, get crispier skin, and the cooking time is also very short.
Great aspect of preparing a spatchcock chicken is how customizable it is in both preparation and flavor profiles! You can roast it in the oven, grill it, or smoke it.
Depending on your tastes, you can also alter the ingredients I have listed in my wet rub to better suit your palate. However, if I do say so myself, my wet rub recipe is loaded with flavor and always yields the most mouthwatering chicken that’s full of flavor!
What Tools Needed to Spatchcock a Chicken?
- All you need is kitchen shears and a large plastic cutting board.
- When working with raw meats, ALWAYS use a plastic cutting board when working with raw meats, never a wooden one.
How To Tell If Roast Chicken Is Fully Done?
Cook time always varies due to type of meat, size, brand, and even different ovens! It’s always best to use a meat thermometer!
It’s the most certain way to make sure the meat is fully cooked. Remember to inserted the probe into the thickest part of the meat, fully cooked chicken that’s safe to eat should be 165°F.
Why Is It Important to Rest Meats After Cooking?
While the chicken (and other meats) are cooking, the muscle tissue condenses and tightens, holding on to the juices. Once chicken is done cooking, the muscle tissue is still condensed and the juices are concentrated in areas rather than spread throughout the piece.
While the meat is resting, the muscle tissue relaxes and lets the juices spread throughout the meat evenly. Letting it rest helps make the chicken more tender and juicy.
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Spatchcock Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 lb whole chicken
Wet Rub:
- 1/4 cup olive oil, avocado oil, canola, or vegetables oil
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp coarse kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp paprika sweet or smoked
- 1 1/2 tsp ground mustard
- 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder or another chili powder
Butter rub:
- 2 tbsp butter softened
- 2 tsp seasoning mix from above
Potatoes:
- 2-3 lbs small potatoes can mix with carrots or other root vegetables
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2-3 tsp coarse kosher salt to taste
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp garlic powder
Instructions
Before preparing the chicken:
- Pull the butter out about 30 minutes before starting to cook to soften it.
- Combine all the seasoning (not the oil) in a small mixing bowl and mix well. Take out 2 teaspoons of the seasoning mix and add it to butter. Thoroughly combine softened butter and seasoning. Mix the rest of the seasoning with oil for the wet rub. Set both aside.
To spatchcock the chicken:
- Remove the whole chicken from the packaging and remove any giblets. (Save giblets and then the back bone for homemade chicken stock.) Cut off excess fat that is often found at the bottom of the chicken, neat the tail.
- Place chicken breast down on a large cutting board. All you need is kitchen shears to remove the backbone. Using the kitchen shears, cut along the spine on one side from top to bottom and then on the other side of the backbone.
- Flip the chicken beast side up. Using the bottom part of the palm of your hand, put a lot of pressure in the center, right between the two breasts. Push down to flatten the breast plate until the breast plate cracks under the pressure and chicken evens out.
Cooking the chicken:
- Preheat the oven to 425°F.
- Carefully, separate the skin from the beast meat. Flatten pieces of seasoned butter and slide it on the breast under the skin. Try to even it out as much as you can.
- Rub outside of the entire chicken with the wet rub. Try to spread about 2/3 of the wet rub on the skin side and about 1/3 of the wet rub.
- Cover a rimmed backing sheet with aluminum foil for easy clean up and lightly grease the foil. Place chicken beast side up onto the aluminum foil.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix potatoes with oil and seasoning and spread it all around the chicken.
- Place the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken. (You can test internal temperature of the chicken part of the breast using a meat thermometer to make sure the chicken is cooked to 165°F.)
- Let chicken rest for about 10 minutes before serving.
Video
Notes
- Storing: make sure to store spatchcock chicken in an air-tight food storage container, in the refrigerator. Properly stored, it will last 3 to 4 days.
- Freezing: you can easily freeze the whole leftover chicken or separate the meat from the bone and freeze just the meat. Make sure to freeze it in an air-tight freezer bag. Get as much air out as you can, seal, and label. Freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw slowly in the refrigerator.
- Reheating: With bone-in recipes like this one, I recommend reheating either in the oven or air fryer as opposed to the microwave. Both options will help maintain that crispy skin. In the air fryer, I’d suggest breaking down the leftovers into breast, thighs, and drumsticks and reheating your leftovers at 360°F for about 4-5 minutes, but it also depends on size of the pieces. You may need a few more minutes if they’re very big. In the oven, I’d suggest 350°F for about 10 minutes, until heated through.
Nutrition
Serving Suggestions
You could add green beans and asparagus to the potatoes. Do it during the last 20 minutes of cooking time. Same would be for mushrooms, summer squash, and zucchini.
If you’re not cooking vegetables at the same time, you can always serve spatchcock chicken with grilled vegetables or grilled corn on the cob. Some other great and comforting side dishes are dinner rolls, mashed potatoes, creamy Brussels sprouts, creamed spinach, or parmesan mushroom orzo.
More Chicken Recipes To Try
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles in August 2021.
All images and text ©Lyubov Brooke for ©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
Tried this recipe after watching a tiktok by Jennifer Garner. This was simply amazing! My wife cannot stop raving about it. Kids loved it. I used whole red potatoes, quartered with rosemary and fresh garlic. I also reduced the thyme by 1/2(ish) as I feel like it overwhelms the spices. It was also, pretty easy all things considered.
So glad you gave it a try, and how fun that Jennifer Garner inspired it! Your version with quartered red potatoes, rosemary, and fresh garlic sounds delicious. Great call on adjusting the thyme to your taste too. Love hearing that it was a hit with the whole family!