Easy Roast Chicken with Vegetables Recipe

Don’t let the thought of cooking a whole chicken be intimidating, this post covers how to make an Easy Roast Chicken with Vegetables. With only a few minutes of prep you can roast chicken and vegetables in one pan making for an impressive yet simple family dinner. 

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Easy Roast Chicken

I think an Easy Roast Chicken is something that every home cook should know how to make. A roasted chicken dinner is the epitome of a classic Sunday supper. If you haven’t made one before it might be slightly intimidating but never fear this post will walk you though how to make the simplest whole roasted chicken over a bed of delicious classic vegetables.

What do I need to make this Roast Chicken and Vegetables Recipe?

Let’s start with a chicken! You’ll want around a 5 pound chicken, depending on where you shop you will see most chickens range from 4 to 6 pounds. 

Next you will need vegetables. Now I promised you a SIMPLE Easy Roast Chicken with Vegetables Recipe so we are just going to use carrots, celery, and onions. In my opinion the simplest of the vegetables. 

Olive oil. When looking at whole chicken recipes you see a lot of butter BUT I have made A LOT of roast chickens and I seriously love the olive oil ones the best so that is why I use olive oil. 

Good quality salt and pepper. Just table salt and pepper don’t quite cut it for this recipe. Because this is a simple recipe you rely on the simple ingredients that are used, so if you have better quality salt and pepper your bird is going to taste better. I recommend good sea salt or Himalayan salt and freshly cracked pepper for this dish.

Special tools needed are kitchen twine, meat thermometer, and a sheet pan. In order to keep the chicken cooking evenly you’ll want to truss the chicken together. In the most basic form, you’ll at least want to truss the legs together, or to put it more simply tie the legs together with the kitchen twine. As we dig into the method I’ll elaborate more on trussing. Meat thermometers aren’t required but are highly recommended, it is best to make sure your chicken is cooked to the proper temperature! You can use an instant read or a leave-in. And finally a sheet pan, no fancy roasting pan is needed to make a roast chicken, just a trusty sheet pan!

So how do you prepare the chicken for roasting?

To get the chicken ready to cook you’ll begin by removing the gizzards and rinsing the chicken in cold water. Using paper towels you will pat the chicken dry and place breast side up on a plate. If you aren’t sure which side is ‘breast side up’ you’ll want the legs and wings pointing upwards towards the ceiling (see pictures).

Now to truss, or tie up. Don’t let this step throw you off, it really is pretty simple. You’ll start with a piece of kitchen twine about 2 feet long. Place the middle of the twine near the neck opening of the chicken. Then bring the twine towards the back of the chicken ensuring the twine covers the wings and keeps them next the the body of the chicken. Bring the twine under the leg but above the thigh, cross the twine underneath the legs, then pushing the ends of the legs together and up wrap the twine around the  ends of the legs and tie. 

The point of the truss is to bring the ends of the legs together to keep for an even bake, so you will at least want to ensure that you tie the legs together with kitchen twine. As for the wings I like to include them in the truss so as they don’t get over baked. Some methods of trussing and preparing chicken will have you bend the wings down and under but I have never found that to be easy or necessary.

Now that your bird is cleaned and trussed the hard part is over! After a good hand washing you’ll want to prepare the vegetables!

Lastly I do want to note, that this is a simple roast chicken so I have not added anything to the empty chicken cavity. Feel free to add herbs, garlic, vegetables, or lemons, I will note that stuffing the chicken does usually add to the cooking time. Stuffing a chicken can add a lot of extra flavor profiles, but it is not necessary to do to make a delicious dinner, sometimes basic is best!

How do I prepare the vegetables for cooking on the same pan as the chicken?

Now because the veggies will be in the oven for upwards of 2 hours (depending on the size of your chicken) you will want to leave the vegetables in bigger chunks! 

For the carrots you will want them peeled, or washed well. I have found the best size to cut the carrots to is to half them in both directions. Half the long way and then cut them in half the short way.

For the celery you will want to remove all the leaves and cut the celery about the same length of the carrots, about 2-3 inches depending on the size of your carrots!

Lastly you will want to cut the onion sort of how you would slice an apple. Peel the skin and remove the root and slice into 6-8 wedges. 

Getting ready to cook the chicken 

Add the cut vegetables to a sheet pan and add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Toss to coat. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the vegetables, toss again. Spread out the vegetables to evenly cover the tray.

Place the chicken on the center of the sheet tray on top of the vegetables breast side up, making sure to keep the truss in place. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the chicken, and gently rub the oil over the entire skin with your hands, add more oil if necessary.

(After you wash your hands) Sprinkle the chicken generously with salt, no need to skimp on the salt, cover the skin with a nice even layer. Add the pepper to taste.

How long do you cook the chicken at 400º F?

You’ll want to preheat the oven to 400ºF. The nice thing about this recipe is you will be able to cook the chicken at 400º the whole time (some recipes call for a temp change). In a way this is somewhat of a set and forget recipe (or at least for an hour or so). So put the sheet pan chicken into the oven and bake about 1 hour and 45 minutes. In my oven I have found that is almost exactly that time every time but you will probably want to start checking the temp after 1 hour and 30 minutes.

So how will you know it is done? You will want to place a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the chicken breast. You’ll want to measure the temperature from the side, so stick the thermometer next to  where the neck was towards the thickest part of the breast. The chicken breast will read 175ºF when ready to come out of the oven. The chicken will continue to cook during the resting time, so by the time you are ready to carve the chicken the temp will be close to 180ºF.

So starting at 90 minutes of cooking start checking the temperature every 10 minutes or so until ready!

Rest time and serving!

It is important to note this isn’t a ‘serve immediately’ meal. You will need to let the chicken rest for at least 10 minutes. This gives the chicken time to finish cooking and retain the juices. 

Once the chicken is rested and cool enough to handle, carve the chicken to serve. Separate the breasts, wings, thighs, and legs to eat. Serve with the cooked vegetables.

Tips & Tricks

• I love serving this simple dinner with my Garlic Parmesan Mashed Cauliflower or a salad like my Two Bean Mediterranean Salad

• Turn this simple roast chicken into your own by adding herbs, garlic, lemons, and other flavorings as desired

• I like to keep all of the vegetable scraps, chicken scraps, and bones to make easy homemade broth

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Peace & Love

Lauren, The Schmidty Wife

P.S. Looking for more chicken recipes? Check out my Easy Southwest Chicken, Supreme Pizza Chicken Bake, or my Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken.