Spatchcock Chicken
Chicken with the good skin
This is hands down our favorite way to make chicken. It’s an overnight process, and is cooked hot & fast, but the crispy skin and juicy chicken is seriously so good!
Ingredients
Prep time: 20 minutes + Overnight
Cooking time: 60 min at 450F
1 whole chicken
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons kosher salt
Olive oil
Pepper
Spatchcock the chicken
Wash and pat dry the chicken
Flip the chicken over on the cutting board breast side down. If using a plastic cutting board wet a paper towel and place it under the cutting board to prevent it from slipping.
Remove the backbone - use a sharp, small, durable knife (leave the big cleavers for the movies). Start at the top of the neck and slowly work your way down the backbone. If you run into the rib cage bones, you’ve gone off track and need to find a new line. Move up higher and start again! Cut all the way through to the thigh (about 3/4 down) look for where the thigh bone connects to the backbone. Repeat down the other side. Set aside this backbone for making gravy or chicken stock.
Notch the breastbone - Now that the breastbone is exposed, right at the top make a 1/2” cut where the two breast pieces meet to break the cartilage. Flip over so the chicken is skin side up, push down to crack the breastbone, the chicken will lay relatively flat at this point.
If you’re feeling adventurous you can flip the chicken back over and remove the breastbone, rib cage, and any cartilage. It’s not required, but makes for easy slicing once cooked.
Dry Brining The Chicken
Liberally salt (1 tablespoon) and pepper the underside of the chicken
Combine the 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking powder and rub onto all areas of the skin
Place on a foil-lined, wire rack, skin side up, uncovered (yes, uncovered), in the refrigerator overnight. This is required to dry out the skin which gives it the crispy deliciousness!
Cooking the Chicken (Hot and Fast)
Post-seasoning & ready to bake
Remove chicken from fridge and blot skin dry with paper towel - you want to allow the chicken to come to room temperature while the oven is pre-heating
Heat the oven to 450-475F depending on how hot your oven runs (the hotter the better… but too hot will cause it to smoke)
Using a neutral flavored cooking oil, cover skin of chicken and then liberally season the chicken with pepper
Cook chicken for approximately 60 minutes, rotating once halfway through.
