There is so much about fall that I love, like apple picking, sweater weather,

and pumpkin spice everything. My favorite hallmark of the season is the

license to make roast chicken whenever I want—warming up the kitchen
and filling the whole house with its delicious smell. Fall, and onward into
winter, might as well be dubbed "roast chicken season" in my home. I make
it once a week, keeping leftovers for easy lunches and making stock from
the bones.

All that said, roasting a whole chicken does require something I don't have a
lot: time. Sometimes, I don’t have the one hour and a half or longer required
to roast the chicken whole. That’s where the most popular chicken recipe on
Simply Recipes comes in.

If you haven’t tried it already, it’s time to add Classic Baked Chicken to your
menu. Since it was first published on May 18, 2009, Simply Recipes readers
clicked on the recipe 12 million times. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t
know what is.

The recipe is a huge time-saver because it calls for cooking cut-up chicken
parts instead of the whole bird. You can cut up the chicken yourself, use a
pre-cut whole chicken, or simply use whichever parts you like. The parts
require much less time in the oven, cutting the cooking time by almost half
compared to cooking it whole.

Sally Vargas

The Easiest Roast Chicken Recipe

This chicken recipe isn’t the site’s most popular chicken recipe just because
it saves time. The chicken recipe is also so popular because it’s incredibly
easy.

Simply salt the chicken parts and let them sit out to get rid of the chill from
the fridge. Then rub with olive oil and salt again, and stick them on a
roasting pan to bake uncovered in a 400°F oven. After 30 minutes, lower the
heat and bake for an additional 10 to 30 minutes depending on the size of
the chicken parts. Remove from the oven when the juices run clear. The
breasts should reach 165°F and the legs and thighs 170°F. That's it!
There are no fancy techniques. You don’t even have to brown the chicken in
a pan first—a step many recipes call for. The hot oven does the browning
for you—all the cooking occurs in the oven in one pan.

This easy trick is a brilliant way to make sure the chicken is seasoned well:
salting the chicken pieces twice. First when it comes out of the fridge and
again after they get a chance to get to room temperature.

I also love the advice to keep the skin on to cook the chicken, even if you
don’t intend to eat it. The skin protects the meat from drying out—it's
sweater weather after all and the chicken needs one too.

Sally Vargas

Take It Up a Notch If You Want

Of course, you can take things up a notch if you have the time. This is such
a simple recipe that it’s also easy to play around with it.

Make a quick gravy: If you started with a whole chicken, simmer the neck
and giblets to make stock for gravy. After the chicken has been baked, you
can scrape the drippings from the pan, deglaze them with white wine or your
freshly-made stock, and reduce it into a wonderful sauce. Adding a little
cornstarch or flour will turn this into a thicker gravy. I prefer to keep the
sauce thinner and if I’ve used only stock and no wine, I’ll add a tablespoon
or two of lemon juice to the pan to make a zippier sauce.

Give the chicken a spice rub: Take this recipe in a different direction by
adding a spice rub before baking. I’ve tried it with a tablespoon each of
ground cumin and coriander, and also with two tablespoons of za’atar.

I do like it best as is—simple and perfect. And it seems a few million people
agree and have added it to their rotation of easy weeknight dinners,
including Gary who said in a comment: "I love this recipe, it reminds me of
the baked chicken my grandmother Jane would serve me when I was a kid.
She was born in 1878, and in the 1960s and early seventies, I lived with her.
I gotta tell you the first time I made this chicken I literally ate it with a tear in
my eye. Made me miss Granny."