Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
Meat and potato lovers will Love YOU for serving them Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes is a classic classic meat and potatoes comfort food dish. You will feel like a true ‘Martha’ when you present this dish to the special people in your life, and you won’t believe how incredibly EASY and SIMPLE this dinner is!
A simple combination of lemon zest, thyme and paprika is mixed with salt, pepper and vegetable oil. This mixture is rubbed all over a raw roasting chicken, both above and under the skin to season the meat and crisp the skin as it roasts. It turns out preparing a roast chicken is much simpler than a turkey!
The seasoned chicken is then placed over a single layer of sliced sweet potato rounds that have also been seasoned lightly with oil, salt and pepper. Sweet potatoes have lots of great health benefits– making this a delicious and healthy recipe too!
As the chicken roasts, the sweet potato cooks underneath in the chicken drippings. This leads to a delectably soft interior and crunchy exterior full of flavor. I have NEVER tasted roasted sweet potato THIS good. It’s simply amazing! This chicken turns out so moist and full of flavor, and the skin nice and crispy too. Make sure you follow the recipe and let it sit, covered in foil for 20 minutes before serving for optimal results.
When you’re ready to serve your Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes, add in a few lemon wedges and fresh thyme sprigs to really slam dunk the presentation. When serving, carve off some chicken and serve with a potato round and lemon wedge.
Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes is so packed with amazing flavor, you’ll forget that it’s also a fairly healthy dish- apart from the chicken drippings, if you leave the skin on your plate a serving is only 275 calories and 25.1 grams of protein!
This dish is an absolute must-try! I know I’ll be putting Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes in my Sunday roast dinner rotation. My family loved it, and I loved how simple and amazing tasting it was.
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Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
- Total Time: 1 hours 35 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
This recipe for Whole Roasted Chicken and Sweet potatoes produces flavorful juicy meat with crispy skin, while seasoned sweet potatoes roast underneath to soak up the chicken drippings. Absolutely delicious- one of the best ‘meat and potatoes’ recipes out there!
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
- 2 teaspoons fresh minced thyme
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 medium lemon, zested then sliced into wedges
- salt and pepper
- 1 4-5 pound whole chicken (any giblets removed and discarded)
- 3 sweet potatoes, peeled, ends sliced off and the remaining sliced into 1 inch thick slices
Instructions
- Set your oven to heat to 400 degrees F and move an oven rack to the lower middle position.
- Mix together 2 tablespoons oil, thyme, paprika, lemon zest, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a small container. Prepare chicken by blotting it dry with paper towels and separating the skin from the breast and legs by hand.
- Rub oil/seasoning mixture both underneath skin and on top of skin all over chicken breast, legs and wings. (Don’t worry about the ‘back’ of the chicken’). Tie the drumsticks together with kitchen twine and fold and tuck the tips of the wings underneath the breast. Stuff a couple lemon wedges inside the chicken. Set chicken aside to sit at room temp while you prepare the potatoes.
- Thoroughly coat the potato rounds with 1 tablespoon oil, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a mixing bowl. Place in a single layer on the bottom of an oven safe skillet (or roasting pan/pot) and cook over medium heat on the stove for about 7 minutes, or until the bottoms are browned and blackened in small spots. Do not flip, only cook one side.
- Place your prepared chicken over the potatoes and place in the oven, uncovered. Roast until interior breast meat reaches 160 degrees F, between 1, to 1 and 1/2 hours. Remove from oven, cover with foil and let rest for about 20 minutes. Carve and serve with leftover lemon wedges.
Notes
Nutrition facts are calculated for chicken meat only and do not include skin.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hours 15 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 3 ounces chicken, one potato round
- Calories: 275
- Sodium: 806 mg
- Fat: 11.7 g
- Saturated Fat: 2.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 16.3 g
- Fiber: 2.6 g
- Protein: 25.1 g
- Cholesterol: 72 mg
I’ve wanted to try several foods: funnel cakes and Beignets. Oh, Real food? haha – corn tamales. They are so delicious but scare me.
Funnel cakes and Beignets I will put on my blog list! I’ve also had a couple other folks ask me about beignets since they look so much like New Mexican Sopapillas. I have a great recipe for corn tamales in my cookbook- New Mexican Food Made Easy :0) You can skip the corn husks and make them with foil instead! Thanks tons for the feedback Kristen :0)
Thank you for this great recipe, Emily! This is the second time that my family has had this recipe and it is absolutely phenomenally delicious. I have doubled it each time I made it. The flavor is so delicious and the chicken is tender and juicy, and the vegetables are fork tender with wonderful peppery flavor. We absolutely love this.
Thanks Michael, I’m so glad you all enjoyed it so much!
Just made this. Was a little wary but had some sweet potatoes. The chicken was nice of course but the sweet potatoes!!! Yummy. Nice for a change. Thanks.
Fabulous Eileen! Thanks so much!!!
This recipe is amazing!! Making it again for Christmas Eve – I was worried about the sweet potatoes getting burned or turning to mush but that didn’t happen. Love it!
Awesome Katie! I just got back from Christmas vacation and saw your comment. Thanks for the great feedback!
This recipe is amazing!! Making it again for Christmas Eve – I was worried about the sweet potatoes getting burned or turning to mush but that didn’t happen. Love it!
Thanks so much for the feedback, I really appreciate it. Glad you loved this recipe; it’s definitely a keeper!
Thanks sharing this article about the whole roasted chicken and sweet potatoes