5-Minute Prep Comfort Meal: Quick Baked Chicken from Anne

Before sharing my friend, Anne’s, recipe for my favorite of the quick baked chicken recipes out there, I’ll mention two other things first:

1. Here’s my other recipe for how to bake a chicken.  You’ll want to check that one out, too, so you can read some of my own tips, plus a lot of great ideas in the comments!
2. Local readers near Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Come hear Anne Sergeant speak at our first Weston A. Price chapter meeting of 2012!  You’ll remember Anne from her wildly popular article, Eating Healthy Shouldn’t Cost an Arm and a Leg.  She’ll be speaking on the top ten superfoods!  Logistics are here, and our local chapter website is here:  Nourishing Ways of West Michigan.  (Not local?  Find your local Weston A. Price chapter.)

5-Minute Prep Comfort Meal:  Baked Chicken from Anne Sergeant

• One of my favorite quick meals is to take a whole pasture-fed chicken and place it in a 9×13 baking pan on a baking rack, breast side down.
  
• Cover with a light coating of butter, which can be done with melted butter and a brush, or fingers with harder butter.
• Sprinkle sea salt and pepper on the outside and a bit of Italian spices if desired.  
• Bake 1 hour at 325* uncovered.
  
• Turn chicken over so breast is up and bake another hour. 
• You can put more butter on at that time. I sometimes salt and pepper it again on this side, too.
• It’s a very forgiving meal, if it stays in the oven an extra half hour, it’s no big deal. 
• Serve the chicken cut up.  Eat within 15 minutes or so while the skin is still nice and crispy.  Or with my family, all the skin gets picked off in the kitchen before we even get it to the table.
  
• Save the bones for soup broth.
  
• I serve this with steamed rice from a rice steamer and maybe some frozen veggies or salad.
  

This is truly the simplest meal. It literally takes less than 5 minutes prep time, although you do have to think about defrosting the chicken and have to be available to turn the chicken. I usually do this for Monday dinner just to get the week started off on an easy foot. I start the bones boiling for broth after dinner Monday and often will have chicken broth soup for lunch Wednesdays. No one tires of having this once a week.

More notes and tips from Anne & I:

• You could also do this with a frozen chicken, just add 20-30 minutes baking time, and when it comes out, if it’s still a bit pink as you cut it up, put it back in the oven for a few more minutes.
• You don’t have to flip it part way through, but it gives you more crispy delicious flavors all over the chicken.
• Kent & I usually throw in some extra chicken pieces with the whole chicken because I like having leftover meat for recipes later.
• Anne often pulls a chicken out in the morning, and when the kids get home from school around 3 or 4, she’ll have them throw it into the oven and they’ll eat at 5 or 6, it’s that simple.  She says she hasn’t made this meal herself in a long time!
• Anne has a “speed bake oven” or convection oven and this will shorten your baking time.
• You could also throw in some cut up carrots and potatoes into the bottom of the pan for an easy side dish.  Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.
• Broiler chickens are usually about 5#.
• Kent & I throw the bones into the crock pot as we’re done eating and get the broth going right away.  (Add water, a splash of vinegar to draw the minerals from the bone, and some veggie scraps.)
• Anne also has cooked a chicken from frozen right in her crock pot for the day on low (or high if you’re starting it later in the morning).  She’ll often add white wine to the bottom for flavor and sprinkle some tarragon on the chicken.  (Kent & I have done this before, too, but the skin doesn’t get crispy, unfortunately, which is our favorite part.  It’s a good way to cook some chicken and make broth for using in other recipes later in the week, though.)

What are your best baked chicken tips?

Share in the comments pretty please?!

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