Thanksgiving Style Chicken for a Smaller Group
Thanksgiving is my holiday. It’s basically my super bowl! But this year, I thought it would be fun to come up with a wonderful chicken recipe for a smaller group. You can still have all of the festive elements of Thanksgiving, but downsized. Enter: the Thanksgiving Chicken! I am so delighted by this chicken recipe. It includes all of the luscious flavors of a turkey but in a smaller setting!
You will use a whole chicken for this dish, but if you are looking for other fantastic, fun chicken recipes that don’t require a whole chicken, check out my Green Curry meatballs, or use chicken breasts for my Nashville Hot Sandwich!
What to Serve at a Smaller Thanksgiving
To serve with this Thanksgiving Chicken, you can choose a few fabulous sides.
First and foremost, I love these easy Weeknight Mashed Potatoes. They come together quickly, and they will be perfect with the gravy that the chicken makes in the bottom of the dish! Talk about easy and talk about delicious.
If you’re feeling like you want some more sides, you could make Roy’s Sausage Sage Stuffing or this easy and delicious Corn Soufflé. He found it in the newspaper decades ago, and he’s been making it ever since. Then for dessert, you could keep it easy with this Jello Mold. It’s light and bright after a Thanksgiving meal for the perfect end to dinner!
What You Need for Your Thanksgiving Chicken
- Whole chicken, brought to room temperature
- Carrots
- Celery
- Yellow onion
- Kosher Salt
- Poultry Seasoning
- Unsalted Butter
How to Make Your Thanksgiving Chicken
Prep Your Chicken
If you didn’t have time to bring your chicken to room temperature, you can preheat your oven to 175°F. Warm the chicken slightly for about five minutes, and then remove the chicken and preheat your oven to 375°F.
Make a “mirepoix” mixture with diced carrot, celery, and onion and set aside. Place carrots and celery stalks lengthwise in the pan and nestle the onion wedges between them. Add a sprinkle of salt and a swig of olive oil over them. Salt the cavity of the bird and stuff the chicken with as much mirepoix as will fit. Place in the pan on top of the bed of vegetables.
Gently create space between the skin of the bird and the flesh by slowly wedging a finger or two between them, so as to not tear the skin. Smooth ½ stick of the softened butter between the skin and the flesh of the chicken, distributing as well as you can all over the breasts. Remember, the butter should be very soft. A tip to use is to put the stick in a bowl that will fit within a larger bowl containing very hot water. Remember to keep the stick of butter dry!
Rub the remaining butter over the top skin and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of poultry seasoning over the chicken. Put the pan in the oven for about 2 hours. Most important: do not open the oven as it cooks!
Roast Your Thanksgiving Chicken
When the bird is starting to become nice and brown, turn the temperature down to 325°F. For us that was around the 45 minute mark, but it could be an hour. When the chicken is done, remove from the oven and let rest before carving.
Keep in mind: This is intended to be a well-done, fall-off-the-bone chicken. You want to roast for around 25 minutes per pound. Our chicken was about 4 to 5 pounds and we roasted it for two hours. When roasting, resist the urge to open the oven door. If you want to look at the chicken to see how it is roasting, take a peek through the window but keep the door closed!
If you have a smaller Thanksgiving and make this Thanksgiving Chicken, rate and review it below. I can’t wait to read about your small Thanksgiving dishes! If you’re looking for more inspiration, sign up for our Friday Favorites newsletter, and follow along on Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok to join in all the fun!
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Thanksgiving Style Chicken for a Smaller Group
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Oven
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
This Thanksgiving Chicken is perfect for a smaller holiday! It brings all the deliciousness of Thanksgiving flavors with a lot less work!
Ingredients
- 1 whole (4 to 5 pound) chicken, brought to room temperature
- 4 medium carrots, peeled, plus 1 medium carrot, finely diced
- 4 stalks of celery, cleaned and trimmed, plus 1 stalk, finely diced
- ½ yellow onion, quartered, plus ½ cup finely diced yellow onion
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
- 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
- 1 stick unsalted butter, softened and divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Note: if you didn’t allow your chicken to come up to room temperature before, you can preheat your oven to 175°F and warm the chicken ever so slightly for about five minutes, and then remove the chicken and continue preheating your oven.
- Make a “mirepoix” mixture with diced carrot, celery, and onion (it should be about 1 ½ cups) and set aside.
- Place 4 carrots and 4 celery stalks lengthwise in the pan and nestle the onion wedges between them. Add a sprinkle of salt and a swig of olive oil over them.
- Salt the cavity of the bird and stuff the chicken with as much mirepoix as will fit. Place in the pan on top of the bed of vegetables.
- Gently create space between the skin of the bird and the flesh by slowly wedging a finger or two between them, so as to not tear the skin. Smooth ½ stick of the softened butter between the skin and the flesh of the chicken, distributing as well as you can all over the breasts. Note: The butter should be very soft. If you haven’t allowed it to come to room temperature, and maybe even a little more than that, a tip to use is to put the stick in a bowl that will fit within a larger bowl containing very hot water. Keep the stick of butter dry.
- Rub the remaining 1/2 stick of butter over the top skin of the chicken and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of poultry seasoning over the chicken.
- Put the pan in the oven for about 2 hours. Do not open the oven as it cooks.
- When the bird is starting to become nice and brown, turn the temperature down to 325°F. For us that was around the 45 minute mark but it could be an hour.
- When the chicken is done, remove from the oven and let rest before carving.
Notes
This is intended to be a well-done, fall-off-the-bone chicken. You want to roast for around 25 minutes per pound. Our chicken was about 4 to 5 pounds and we roasted it for two hours. When roasting, resist the urge to open the oven door. If you want to look at the chicken to see how it is roasting, take a peek through the window but keep the door closed!
We made this chicken tonight for dinner – and I’m almost speechless at how good it was! And simple to make too. The chicken was incredibly tender, the juice underneath the bird was so flavorful and perfect for basting and dipping. And I ate the celery, carrots and onions that the chicken roasted on – do not miss out on those! And as a side, in Teri’s IG stories she bit off the very top of the wing so I tried it too and it was honestly glorious. Go make this recipe! So so so good!
Easy & Delicious. Making is two Sundays in a row.
Making it not is.
I’m giving up the turkey this year and making this! We have a group of 7. Do you think I could roast two chickens in a roasting pan side by side?
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This was excellent! We are dual US/Canadian citizen of English heritage. Looking out at the fall, I could not handle the thought of a 3 turkeys for Canada Thanksgiving, US Thanksgiving and Christmas – even though I love traditional holiday food! We found this wonderful recipe for our 3-person Christmas. It felt traditional, was delicious and pretty easy to prepare. It was a bit tough to find a 5 lb whole chicken, but we did. I was a bit worried about a whole tablespoon of salt but it was not too salty. We served with mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts and tried the corn souffle to round out our meal.