| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 40 min |
| Prep: | 15 min |
| Cook: | 25 min |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 lemons
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 to 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- 2 half chickens (3 to 3 1/4 pounds total)
Instructions
- Position an oven rack about 8 to 10 inches from the broiler and preheat. Grate the lemon zest and combine in a small bowl with the butter, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste. Mash with a fork to make a smooth paste.
- With your fingers, gently loosen the skin on the chicken breasts, legs and thighs. Spread the flavored butter under the skin as evenly as possible. Halve the lemons and squeeze 2 halves over the chicken; season with salt and pepper.
- Place the chicken skin-side up on a broiler pan (or a rack on a baking sheet). Position the halves about 2 inches apart with the thick parts of the legs facing the center. Arrange the remaining 2 lemon halves cut-side down next to the chicken.
- Broil the chicken until the skin is light brown and crisp, about 8 minutes. If the chicken browns too quickly, lower the oven rack. Flip the chicken and the lemons and continue to broil until almost cooked through (a thermometer inserted into the thickest part will register 160 degrees), about 15 minutes. Remove the lemons, if browned; turn the chicken again and broil until the skin is brown and crisp and the thermometer registers 165 degrees, about 2 more minutes. Serve the chicken with the broiled lemons for squeezing on top.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 453 |
| Total Fat | 29 grams |
| Saturated Fat | 10 grams |
| Cholesterol | 149 milligrams |
| Sodium | 491 milligrams |
| Carbohydrates | 3 grams |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 grams |
| Protein | 42 grams |
Reviews
Recommend using HI broiler and lower rack. Cooking time was perfect. Chicken was juicy and tender. Will use butter only on skin next time and not squeeze lemon on it before and after cooking.
Good way to prepare chicken halves. I agree with SGallmeier, delicate flavor and a solid recipe.
Very good chicken! A little bit to much lemon though
Turned out with nice, crispy skin. The flavor wasn’t very strong at all, but it was there. A solid, but not special, chicken recipe. Also, I used split Cornish Hen.
Super easy weeknight dinner! This chicken was so juicy! I used split chicken breast instead of the half chickens. The timing worked about the same. On the last flip of the chicken to brown the skin, I did leave it for about 4-5 minutes instead of only 2. This gave the skin a chance to crisp and get a beautiful brown. This is an easy base to build off of. To change up the flavors in the future, I’ll add to the mix maybe a teaspoon of herbes de provence, or even just some dried rosemary. I could even see adding some orange zest and some of the juice with the lemon as well.
Very very bland. Nothing special. I was surprised and how little flavor there was considering the ingredients.
It was very bland and the skin did not crisp up at all. I will definitely not be making this again.
This sounded good – but we were disappointed. Not that it wasn’t good but for the effort I didn’t see the added value in the effort. We did it on rotisserie and for some reason the skin wasn’t as crisp as we had expected.
I have never made someting that had 5 stars that I didn’t like, but this was blah. I followed everything exactly. The chicken had only a small fraction of the flavor I would have expected from this.
This recipe was easy to prepare and cook. It will be a redo for the future.