The BEST Slow Roasted Chicken Recipe with Crispy Skin

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This BBQ Slow Roasted Chicken Recipe is marinated in homemade BBQ sauce overnight and then roasted in the oven. It’s extremely juicy, soft, and tender on the inside and slightly crispy on the outside. Baked with vegetables, this one-pan recipe is so easy and tastes divine!

This post was originally published on May 2nd, 2020.

I’ve been making a tonne of different BBQ sauces recently (like this Sugar-Free BBQ Sauce and this Stout BBQ Sauce) and then the fun part is experimenting with it in different ways! Of course, you can use it the usual ways – dip, spread, pizza sauce, but marinating meat with it and making oven-baked rotisserie chicken is next level aah-mazing!

❤️ Why you will love this recipe

• Easy, simple recipe: Make BBQ sauce, marinate the chicken in the BBQ sauce overnight, cook it a bit in the oven by itself, then add veggies and the extra sauce to the pan, and roast it until everything is cooked through. This is one of the easiest methods to cook perfect roasted chicken. If you don’t want to make your own BBQ sauce, use store-bought instead!
• It’s delicious: Smoky, sweet, tangy, spicy, juicy, tender, and crispy, all in one pan? Yes, please! The vegetables soak up the pan juices and taste just incredible. Plus, the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender. A perfect, delicious dinner.
• It’s a one-pan dish: One pan = less clean-up later!
• Suits everyone: Whether you like dark meat or white meat, you can have either with this recipe! It’s also nice and sweet. Kids love it too!
• You can change up the veggies: I used brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and potatoes because we’ve had a boat-load of root vegetables in our local veggie box the past few weeks, but use other roasting veggies like carrots, radish, courgettes, whatever you have on hand.

🗝️ Key Ingredients & Substitutions

• Chicken: One whole chicken that has been cleaned inside (i.e. organs removed).
• Olive oil: Or another healthy oil like avocado oil.

BBQ Sauce

You can use store-bought bbq sauce if desired, but I love making my own. It tastes so much better!

• Passata: Or canned tomato sauce. In a pinch, you could also blend canned diced tomatoes with a hand blender (I do this often).
• Liquid smoke: Barbecue sauce is a little smoky so I add liquid smoke. It’s quite easy to find online or in grocery stores in the US.
• Sweetener or sugar of choice: I like erythritol stevia for this recipe, however, you can use any sugar or sugar substitute you like (coconut sugar, brown sugar, xylitol, allulose, etc.).
• Spices: Allspice and cumin, ground. If you have whole spices you can grind them in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.
• Sumac: Sumac is a powdered, tart berry that is a great substitute for vinegar. It cuts the cooking time down as there is less liquid to boil off. Apple cider vinegar or white vinegar can be added instead.
• Paprika: Sweet, smoky, or hot will all work well. Adjust it to your taste. I like it spicy so I add 1 teaspoon of hot, but if I’m feeding people who don’t like spicy food I opt for smoky or sweet instead.
• Sea or kosher salt and ground black pepper: Seasoning to enhance all of the other flavors. 

🥣 How to make this Slow-Roasted Chicken Recipe?

It takes just 3 easy steps:

1. Make BBQ Sauce:

1. Add all of the BBQ sauce ingredients into a pot.
2. Cook on medium-high heat stirring occasionally for about 10-15 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.

2. Marinate the chicken:

Place the entire chicken in a large, ziplock bag with 1.5 cups of BBQ sauce, and olive oil, and refrigerate it overnight.

3. Bake the chicken:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/ 390 degrees F.

2. Place chicken upside down in a roasting tray, covering the surface of the chicken with any sauce leftover in the ziplock bag. I used a pastry brush to brush the bbq sauce over the chicken evenly.

3. Roast chicken in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

4. Take it out after 15 minutes, and reduce the oven temperature to 140°C. 

5. Turn the chicken over, add the veggies and any remaining BBQ sauce to the pan, stir the vegetables, cover the roasting pan with aluminum foil or a lid, and bake it for one hour.

6. After an hour, take it out and increase the temperature back up to 200°C. 

7. Remove the foil or lid.

8. Place back into the oven, uncovered, and let the chicken cook for 35 minutes.

9. Check the chicken is ready by inserting a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh. When the instant-read thermometer reads 75°C/165°F it is ready.

10. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before slicing. This keeps the chicken juices in the chicken, making the tender meat incredibly moist.

🫙 Storage Instructions

• Fridge: Allow the chicken to cool completely to room temperature and store it in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. Reheat thoroughly in the microwave or in the oven before consuming it.
• Freezer: Cut the meat off of the bones and store it in an airtight, freezer-friendly container or freezer bag for up to 3 months.

🪄 Recipe Notes & Tips

• Cook time: The cooking time can vary from oven to oven and depending on the size of the chicken. A smaller chicken will cook quicker, and a larger one will take longer. Always check the internal temperature if you are unsure that it’s cooked properly.
• Internal temperature: The easiest way to check if your chicken is ready is by using an instant read thermometer. Insert it onto the inner thigh of the chicken. When the internal temperature reaches 75°C/165°F it is ready to rest.

🥔 What vegetables can I add to the roasting pan?

Here is a list of vegetables you can use in this faux-tisserie chicken recipe. Just ensure that the vegetables cover the bottom of the pan, around the chicken in one layer, without too much overlapping:

• Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes
• Carrots
• Fennel root
• Parsnip
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Bell Peppers
• Leeks
• Radish
• Turnip
• Rutabaga
• Swede
• Collard greens/similar greens
• Cauliflower
• Squash
• Zucchini
• Butternut squash
• Beets
• Whole garlic cloves

🍽️ What can I serve with roasted chicken?

Along with the oven roasted vegetables, here are a few other side dishes to try:

• Pickled Beet Salad
• Mashed Potatoes
• Mashed Rutabaga
• Parsnip Puree
• Air Fryer French Fries
• Air Fryer Sweet Potato Fries
• Air Fryer Brussels Sprouts
• Healthy Coleslaw

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

😋 More easy chicken recipes to try

• Dairy-Free Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole
• Easy Chicken Fajitas
• Best Brazilian Chicken Stroganoff
• Baked Keto Chicken Wings
• Instant Pot Shredded Chicken

Have you made this recipe? I’d love to know <3 Tag me (@makehealthyrecipes) on Facebook and Instagram, Pin it on Pinterest, and please leave a star rating review below! Don’t forget to subscribe to the email list (top right of this page) for sparkly new recipes in your inbox.

📖 Recipe