Roast Chicken is a family favourite, it’s easy to make and, as well as providing dinner, there are always leftovers to use for a second meal. Slow Roasted Lemon Pepper Chicken is an even easier way of roasting your chicken, you can go off and do something else for a couple of hours and come back succulent chicken falling off the bone, but with a crispy skin.
The chicken is rubbed with a lemon pepper seasoning, but if you don’t have any, then freshly ground black pepper and a little lemon zest will give a similar flavour. What makes the Slow Roasted Lemon Pepper Chicken so succulent is the ‘bath’ of water, onions and carrots, which gently steams the chicken from below, while the heat from the oven toasts the skin till it’s crisp. I use an old enamelled lidded roaster which belonged to my mother-in-law, but if you don’t have one, then simply make a tent of aluminium foil over a roasting tin to capture the steam.
- 1 medium roasting chicken
- 2 carrots
- 2 medium onions
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used Scottish rape seed oil)
- 1 tsp lemon pepper
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 800ml cold water
- Heat the oven to 180C
- Peel the onions and quarter, wash the carrots (no need to peel) and roughly chop, place in the base of your roasting tin.
- Place the chicken on top of the vegetables, rub with the oil and cover with the lemon pepper and salt.
- Pour the water round the chicken and put the lid on the roaster, or create a tent over your chicken with aluminium foil.
- Roast at 180C for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 140C and cook for a further 2 hours.
- If you don't have lemon pepper seasoning, use freshly ground black pepper and a 1/4 tsp of grated lemon zest.
I served the Slow Roasted Lemon Pepper Chicken with potatoes mashed with a generous knob of butter and a splash of milk, shredded spring cabbage and lots of gravy made with the juices from the roaster.
This Slow Roasted Lemon Pepper Chicken is my entry for the Slow Cooked Challenge, the blogging challenge I run with Lucy from Baking Queen 74. This is the first time I’ve entered a recipe that hasn’t been made in my Slow Cooker (shocked face!) but it is the Slow Cooked Challenge, so that’s allowed. Lucy is hosting this month and has chosen the theme of ‘Spring’. I think this dish is perfect for spring, stick it in the oven and get outside into the garden for a couple of hours and your warming dinner will be cooking away and ready for you coming in.
If you would like to know more about the Slow Cooked Challenge, then visit the Slow Cooked Challenge page featuring all the challenges and Slow Cooked recipes linked up since January 2014.
Shocking that this is not a slow cooker recipe! 😉 Only joking, this sounds so good! I have never done a chicken this way but it sounds ideal for when you are gardening or something like that. I must try it in one of my cast iron dishes. Thanks for your lovely #SlowCookedChallenge entry! 🙂
I know, I wanted a crispy skin and the slow cooker was being used for something else anyway!
this just looks immense! I adore a slow-cooked chicken like this… love that it all cooks together. Do you have a chicken brick? I’ve always wanted one.
Thanks Dom, definitely our kind of food! I had several chicken bricks in the 1990s but they all cracked despite proper soaking, so I gave up!
I love food you can shove in the oven and relax with a cup of tea afterwards! I don’t buy while chickens nearly enough but love the sound of this, would be great for leftovers too! x
Thanks Lisa, whole chicken is so much better value than portioned, I often buy it and portion it myself.
Fab recipe Janice! I made something similar at the weekend but with wild garlic pesto. Even used my Mums enameled lidded roaster!
Sounds great, Claire. Long live the enamel roaster!