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I love a good roast chicken, especially when the skin gets good and brown – you guys know that. One of the best tricks for getting a deliciously crispy skin on bird is to make sure you use some sort of fat to help.
And a really hot oven. Which for some reason frightens people. Don’t be frightened. My oven is typically set at 425°F when I roast a chicken, and then I cook the bird for about 20 minutes per pound. Baste with pan drippings a few times during the cooking process. Simple. SOME recipes call for an oven set at 500°F to start…but we’ll save that for another day.
When I roast a bird, I definitely like to slather the top with salt, pepper and olive oil – maybe some herbs, perhaps a little garlic salt.
But the crispy goodness and perfect seasoning under the skin, comes from slathering butter…well…under the skin.
You can use plain old butter. Boring.
OR, you can spice up your butter before you slather!
Salted Sage & Pepper Butter
This salted sage and pepper butter combines room-temperature salted butter with diced fresh sage, black pepper, and lemon zest. It's perfect for enhancing the flavor of roast chicken by spreading it under the skin before roasting, resulting in crispy, well-seasoned skin.
Ingredients
- 1 stick salted butter, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh sage, diced
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest*
Instructions
Notes
Swap the sage out for your favorite herb (fresh parsley is yummy!), or blend a few together!
*Here’s what happens when you try to work too late at night. You forget a crucial part of a recipe, and a faithful reader picks it out. Thank you, Molly, for wondering what the yellow stuff in the photograph was! The lemon creates such a lovely scent, I would’ve hated for you to miss out! The ingredient has now been added. Shew.
