Truly perfect roast chicken

I’ve always been intimidated by cooking whole chickens. It felt like it would be a lot of work and I was certain I wouldn’t be able to carve it appropriately at the end.

Well, leave it to my mom to find the best recipe for roast chicken whether you’re a novice or pro. The meat is tender and juicy, the vegetables are tender and might make you salivate. It’s all-around perfection.

Full disclosure: I still am bad at carving whole chickens and it’s harder when it’s hot. BUT, definitely worth the trouble.

Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken

Bentley’s Way

• Size Matters: I typically use a 3-4 pound chicken because we’re bad at leftovers, but leave all other ingredient amounts the same. I also recently used a 5.6 pound chicken and it tasted amazing following the instructions exactly, so you can’t go wrong.

• Cook Time: Because of the smaller chicken, I only roast 45 minutes to 1 hour and I cook it at 400 because my oven runs HOT. Know your oven and check the temp — you don’t want to overcook here.

• Extra Butter: I also accidentally melted a lot more butter one time and it was a beautiful mistake. While Ina says 2 TBS, 4 feels better to me.

• Sides: While you don’t need an extra side with this because the carrots, onions and fennel are perfect on their own, casual mashed potatoes are a fantastic addition as are blistered green beans if you want something green.

Most recent roast with the larger chicken! Worked beautifully and went a little longer than 1.5 hours.