Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

How to Make Spatchcock Chicken in One Easy and Delicious Recipe

Steven John
By

For most people here in the States, it’s been less than a week of quarantines and isolations. By now, you’ve probably gone to the store and stocked up on things. But what happens when you get there and they don’t have the pre-cut chicken pieces and only the whole birds? Well, you make lemonade out of lemons (figuratively) and cook that bird up. Don’t know how? We’ve got one word for you: spatchcocking.

The name — and if you can say it without giggling then bravo for you — dates back to the 18th century and was a shortened version of the phrase “dispatch the cock.” (Get your laughs out now. We’ll wait.) The first references to the phrase come to us, according to scholars, from Irish cookbooks. Now, when we talk about spatchcocking, we are talking about splitting the bird down the middle so that it lays flat in the roasting pan.

Recommended Videos

When done right (and yes, it really is easy), spatchcocking can help you prepare an entire roasted chicken in about a half hour. Not only is this technique swifter than traditional roasting, but it also yields a juicy, flavorful, evenly cooked bird.

Related

This technique does require the removal of a chicken’s backbone. It’s not exactly an impersonal cooking experience, but we believe in you.

Spatchcock Chicken Recipe

1 of 2
spatchcock chicken recipe
bhofack2/Getty Images
spatchcock chicken technique
Andrew1Norton/Getty Images

Ingredients:

  • 1 whole chicken
  • 1 lb potatoes, cubed
  • 2 carrots, coined
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • Salt, to taste
  • Black pepper, to taste

Method:

  1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. Places the diced vegetables in the bottom of a roasting pan. Toss with oil, salt, and pepper.
  3. Lay the chicken breast-side down and using kitchen shears (you can use a knife, but shears make the process much easier), cut out the backbone out of the chicken. (You can save the backbone for making stock if you wish).
  4. Open the chicken up so that you can see the ribs and sternum. Take hold of the chicken and press down to break the sternum.
  5. Place the bird skin side up on top of the vegetables and season as desired. Place in oven, cooking for about 40 minutes, or until the temperature in the thigh reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
  6. Let rest five minutes before serving.

Looking for other things to cook in your oven? Why not try your hand at steak?

Article originally published by Steven John on November 13, 2016. Last updated by Sam Slaughter.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Steven John
Steven John
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Steven John is a writer and journalist living just outside New York City, by way of 12 years in Los Angeles, by way of…
The perfect comfort food: Make this beef stroganoff recipe in just 30 minutes
The king of all comfort foods, this recipe will keep you warm all winter
best beef stroganoff recipe

My favorite indulgence (aside from great whiskey) is stick-to-your-ribs, fatty, flavorful, warm and cozy, tastes-like-Grandma-made-it comfort food. Chicken and dumplings, braised short ribs, pastas in cream sauce for days — I want it all. If it's made with a pound of butter and dumped on top a pile of carbs, I'm a fan. No questions asked.

The meal that tops it all? Beef stroganoff. This is a dish that just tastes like love in a bowl. It's perfect for chilly days and cold nights by the fire. If possible, it's even better the next day. Its beefy, creamy, mushroomy, earthy sauce absolutely sings when combined with egg noodles, and there's just nothing better in the world. Don't argue. You'd be wrong. There isn't.

Read more
How to make a creamy soup out of almost anything (no recipe required)
Use this simple technique to master the art of creamy soups
how to make creamy vegetable soup without a recipe pumpkin carrot

It's soup season. When the weather is cool, the sweatpants have made their annual debut, and there are more leaves on your lawn than in the damned trees, it's time to put the soup on. And while you may already have your standard favorite easy soup recipes on standby, this technique will help you master the art of creamy soup. With just a few simple steps, you'll be able to turn basically anything into a piping-hot bowl of deliciously silky, savory warmth. So grab a spoon and enjoy your creamy vegetable soup.

Choose and prep your ingredients
Obviously, the first step in the process of making your cream soup is to decide on ingredients. Most standard vegetable soups start with a mirepoix, which is a very traditional starter for many soups and sauces containing onions, carrots, and celery. To this, other ingredients can be added, of course, but the cooking of mirepoix is a typical first step. In a pureed vegetable soup, you'll need both your main flavor(s) as well as aromatics to help that flavor shine and create depth. Aromatics are savory vegetables that help support the main ingredient, such as onions, shallots, leeks, and garlic. Your main star may be positively anything you wish; just think of all of your favorite creamy soups — potato, mushroom, tomato, pea, butternut squash, pumpkin, the list goes on and on.

Read more
How To Perfectly Roast a Chicken at Home
A whole roasted chicken served on a plate.

An expertly roasted chicken, with its juicy meat and crispy skin, has a tendency to remind you of your childhood. Remember those days? No real responsibility, energy of a baby jackrabbit, sneaking sips from dad's glass of bourbon, and mom's home-cooked Sunday dinners of roasted chicken with buttery mashed potatoes and gravy. They call it "comfort food" for a reason, and a roasted chicken is definitely one of those foods. Seemingly simple on paper, roasting a chicken the right way does require some proper planning and know-how to ensure your roasted bird comes out the same as if it were cooked by a professional chef.

We're going to outline every step of the process to make sure your roasted chicken is the best it can be, from what to look for when buying your bird, to the differences between wet and dry brining, to roasting. It may seem like a long process, but the effort is rewarded in the end with what will be the best-roasted chicken you've (probably) ever had.

Read more