Spatchcocked Chicken With Herb Butter Recipe (2024)

When prepping meat to roast, grill, or bake, including poultry, I leave out for a min of 2 hours. Goal is room temperature for even cooking. My father was a butcher and caterer and this is from him. I cook for pleasure

Herb butter tends to burn at 450ºF. To mitigate a potential visit from your local FD, melt herb butter with some olive oil and white wine, then whisk in a tablespoon or so of Dijon mustard before spreading on/under the skin. Now you can roast at 450ºF for 35 - 45 minutes without burning. I've been using the technique for 20+ years (thank you Jacques Pepìn!) with great success.

I put all the flavoring ingredients including lemon zest strips into Food processor to grind. Then added butter. Super easy to make extra this way and freeze in ice cube trays for future. Also used 400 for 4.5# bird. 75 min

Delicious! The only change I made was to cook the chicken at 400 rather than 450 - my smoke detector is hyper sensitive - which meant that the cooking time was about 75 minutes. Wonderful flavors!

Why not take out the backbone and use it for stock? I tend to cut off wing tips as well. All that goes into my stock bag in the freezer. Before long, there's enough chicken and veg parings for a batch of stock.

400 got 75 min

After performing the usual...spatchcocking, I take my fillet knife, and run it under the ribs on each side, using them as a guide to cut against, until they are free and can be removed. This essentially yields breasts that are filleted, free of the ribs, which makes slicing(for sandwiches, or chicken salad, later) much easier. The ribs are saved, along with the backbones, for the stock-pot. Easy-peasey pumpkin pie.

Took my chicken out of the fridge and then let it rest for 2 hours before putting the herb butter on. Also cooked at 400 for 75 min

in our house growing up, my mom would take perfectly delicious ingredients and destroy them. It wasn't dinner without the smoke detector blasting at highest volume and the fire department coming.

This recipe calls for a 'modified' or partially spatchcocked chicken given the backbone is cut only on one side and left on the bird. A fully spatchcocked chicken is even better to use. You can see Melissa Clark's great 'how to' video at the following link. I always do it this "full" way - easy to do and to cook - and save backbones in freezer for stock. https://www.nytimes.com/video/dining/100000001076482/spatchcocking-a-chicken.html

A mess for me. The final result was tasty enough but using a rimmed baking sheet at 450 degrees was a disaster -- the grease from the chicken covered the baking sheet and began very quickly to burn and produce prodigious quantities of smoke, setting our smoke alarms, and splattering throughout the oven creating and huge clean up mess. A smaller pan/roaster is required not much larger than the spatchcocked chicken itself. Good luck.

This was amazing. I only had fresh rosemary and parsley, but also added dried thyme, a little cayenne, some TJ’s umami mushroom powder—whatever sounded good from my spice rack! Roasted at 400 degrees for 70 minutes, following some commenters’ advice here, and bashed frequently with the melted butter. The skin was perfection and the meat juicy, flavorful, and tender throughout.

Added note: about covering the chicken with the herb butter.1. I assumed the instruction "all over" meant the upper skin area.2. At first the temperature / texture of the chicken and that of the butter make it difficult to spread. I sort of daubed it on best I could. But once it had been in the oven for just a few minutes I found I could take a brush and spread it evenly over the whole chicken.Worked out well.

This was delicious. My chicken was about 4.5 lbs. so I figured that I needed to cook it longer than the recipe states. But I was afraid that the skin might burn at 450, so I roasted it at 400 for about 1 hr. and 10 min., and it came out perfectly. Also, I cooked it on a flat rack over a roasting pan, and after 15 min. of cooking I added some halved baby Yukon Gold potatoes to the pan and tossed them around in the pan before putting the chicken back on top and into the oven. They were also yummy!

No way. 450 degrees with a butter mix? I was skeptical and I was right: the oven was a mess and I had to open the windows in the kitchen, turn on the exhaust, and turn up the air purifier to high. Yes I massaged the butter mixture under the skin but 450 degrees for 40 minutes? Beware. I can't wait to see how much work it'll take tomorrow to clean up the butter bomb in the oven.

Followed recipe and suggestions. I had a smaller chicken - cooked @ 400 with no problem. Very good and easy.

This was one of the juiciest and flavorful whole chickens I’ve ever cooked. I used dried herbs with the exception of parsley. I added more seasoning than the recipe suggested. 450 was definitely too hot for butter. After 35 minutes it was too smokey and then I turned it down to 400 and finish it off.

I failed at this one - with a small bird (3.1 lbs) at 450 it was pink and ready to give everyone campylobacter at 60 mins. I'd rest it longer on the counter (only did 30 mins) and I'd drop the temp to 400 and cook longer like many commenters have suggested. The recipe is broken in my opinion though if it suggests doneness at 45-55 mins for 3.5-4 lbs, unless you like your chicken medium rare.

I cut up some potatoes and butternut squash, placed them in the 12” round pan, and put the spatchcocked chicken on top of it. The juices flavored the vegetables and made a delicious, one-pot dinner. Set the oven at 425. No smoke or flames in the oven.

I made this with some tweaks. I always roll any compound butter I make into a log and chill it. Did that for this recipe -- then sliced the butter into thin coins and put them UNDER the skin all over the chicken instead of on top. Also cooked it at a lower temperature as many suggested. It was delicious! And far less of a mess.

Checked this when the internal temp got to about 110 and was greeted to a smoke bomb. Turned it down to 350 and let it go from there. The high heat gets a nice crisp skin but you could probably do the same at 400 rather than 450. Should have read the notes beforehand.

Yep, 450 is too hot. The garlic burnt in the first half hour. Turned the oven down to 400 and it was perfect. Should have read the notes, like I almost always do.

Butter and herbs burned very quickly in the 450 degree oven.

How about a layer of potatoes under the chicken to stop the smoke?

Safe, thyme, oregano, garlic, lemon zest

Did 450 on my grill (I can maintain temp) skin was Burnt after 20 minutes. Definitely should have looked at the comments and turned down to 400.

use mayonnaise instead of butter no smoking turned the heat down to 400

I’m not sure how anyone can cook this at 450 without burning / smoke issues. Agree with others that 400 for a longer duration is better (and safer).

Agree to cook at 400 degrees rather than 450. May add a bit more time (~10-20 min) but will be worth it for the herb butter to not burn.

The oven temperature is too high for the butter. Next time I would go high for the first 20 minutes and then down to 350.