Pasture Raised Roasted Chicken

Pasture Raised, Rotationally Grazed Chickens cook different then your confinement store bought chickens. Obviously, an animal that has had access to exercise and can scratch in the dirt will have a very different kind of meat because they will have very different leg, thigh and breast meat structure. For the pastured bird you need to cook ‘low and slow’.

I recommend that people cook with ingredients they are comfortable with.

Ingredients

  • Pastured Chicken

  • Herbs Rosemary/Thyme

  • Coconut oil/Olive oil/butter

  • Salt, pepper, Jere Farms All Purpose Seasoning

Instructions

  1. Slowly defrost the bird. by placing in the refrigerator or just leaving in a sink until thawed. Then wash the bird by rinsing with cool water inside and out and checking for any pin feathers, trim the neck bones back to the main body of the bird. Dry the bird inside and out, and prepare your pan.

  2. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

  3. Use a large roasting pan and a rack, and place the bird either breast up or back up, depending on your preference. At this point you can decide how you will season the bird. I often use fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, parsley, etc.), salt and pepper and garlic. I will never recommend using lemon……You could also use onions and almost any other spices you might desire. I tuck the legs under the fat flap or tie them up, and then dress the outside of the bird with coconut oil, olive oil or butter and salt and pepper and I generously cover the entire bird inside and out with our Jere Farms All Purpose Seasoning.

  4. If you want to have some roasted vegetables place under the chicken cut up potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms. If there is anything you like as a roasted vegetable toss it in there, I will even put some sweet potatoes, cauliflower and even sometimes beets in the dead of winter in the bottom of the pan for the vegetables to roast in the drippings.

  5. I then put the bird in the preheated oven and forget about it for 2 hours. I don’t baste (you can, of course, if you want) but sometimes I turn the bird over so the breast side is down to finish and all those juices go to the breast and the breast will be moist. The bird is finished when the leg bones are flexible and the thigh juices run clear after puncture with a sharp knife. This usually takes two hours.

  6. If you want a crispier skin you can turn the chicken breast side up and heat up to 400 degrees for the last 20 minutes of the cooking time.

  7. Don’t toss those bone! Save the carcass for a nourishing bone broth, then add veggies, any leftover bits of meat, and your seasonings and herbs, I like to use bay leaves, and enjoy a healthy, immune-boosting, gut healing broth. You can cool the broth, skim the fat off and freeze in quart size freezer bags, jars, or any plastic container. Just leave enough room for expansion.

Jere Farms