Roast Chicken and Vegetables
I absolutely love the ease and simplicity of a one pan meal. The ability of spreading everything on one pan and then throwing it in the oven makes dinner easy and perfect when life is busy. Roast chicken is the ultimate one pan meal and this recipe will show you how to roast a whole chicken with lots of vegetables. Trust me, this is delicious!
Even though spring is around the corner, the temperature here has still been quite cold. Therefore, I have been using the oven quite a bit, making one pan meals like this roast chicken and vegetables.
Roasting is a super tasty way to cook chicken and requires very little attention or monitoring. Basically, just throw it in the oven and pul it out once it reaches the target internal temperature. Even though it is possibly the easiest way to cook chicken, it is also very delicious. The meat is both tender and juicy while the skin is crackly with lots of flavour from the seasonings.
To turn this into a one pan meal I simply spread chopped up vegetables all over the pan around the chicken. I used onions, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, sweet potatoes and garlic. Cut them up into similarly sized chunks of around 1 1/2 inches. That way they should cook evenly and start to caramelize from the roasting.
The vegetables are absolutely incredible roasted this way and everyone gobbled them up super fast. Depending on what you have available you could vary what vegetables are used. Feel free to omit some of these and add others. Some different options are celery, butternut squash, acorn squash, parsnips, or brussels sprouts.
Other Great One Pan Meals
I have a few other ‘one pan’ or ‘skillet’ meals. Here are some great recipes that both delicious and easy to prepare!!
- Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Vegetables
- Baked Pork Chops with Apples and Peppers
- Chicken Cutlet with Broccoli and Peppers in a Dill Cream Sauce
- Skillet Corn with Sausage
- Baked Eggs in a Cast Iron Skillet
- Skillet Shepherd’s Pie
If desired, you can brine the chicken first. Brining results in a juicy chicken with wonderful flavour. I have a detailed explanation for this method here – How to Brine Chicken
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. This ensures that nothing sticks to the pan and also allows for super simple clean up. Place the two chickens on the pan and spread the chopped up vegetables all around the chickens on the pan.
I stick half a lemon in the cavity of each chicken. I also quarter another lemon and squeeze lemon juice all over the vegetables. Leave the lemon quarters on the pan with the vegetables.
Sprinkle the seasoning all over the chicken and vegetables. Drizzle the oil on the vegetables.
The chicken and vegetables are ready to go in the oven. Preheat the oven to 375F. Put the pan in the oven and roast until the chicken has cooked through and reached an internal temperature of 165F. This takes around 2 hours, or maybe a little bit longer depending on the size of the chicken.
Take the pan out of the oven and serve. You can cut the chicken into quarters, similar to what you would get at Swiss Chalet. You could also break them down into smaller pieces if you don’t have super big eaters.
If you like Swiss Chalet chicken, check out my copycat recipe for their Swiss Chalet Sauce.
Now while I roasted two whole chickens, you could easily halve this recipe so that you only roast one chicken and half the veggies. Since I have teenage boys, one chicken would not be enough for our family.
Roast Whole Chicken and Vegetables - One Pan Meal
Ingredients
- 2 chickens around 4 pounds each
- 2 onions peeled and sliced
- 10 garlic cloves
- 15 mushrooms quartered
- 5 carrots peeled and cut into chunks
- 6 potatoes cut into chunks
- 3 sweet potatoes peeled and cut into chunks
- 1 1/2 tbsp salt
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/3 cup oil
- 2 lemons
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Place the whole chickens on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Spread the garlic cloves and chopped up onions, mushrooms, carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes evenly on the baking sheet around the chickens.
- Sprinkle the salt, oregano, pepper and thyme all over the chicken and vegetables.
- Cut one lemon in half and place one half in the cavity of each chicken. Quarter the other lemon and squeeze the lemon juice all over the vegetables. Place the lemon quarters on the pan with the veggies. Drizzle the oil all over the vegetables.
- Place in the oven and roast until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165F. This should take 2 - 2 1/2 hours.
- Serve.
