Roast Chicken with Herb Butter
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This roast chicken recipe features crispy, golden skin, herb butter, and a rich Dijon pan sauce—simple enough for a weeknight, impressive enough for company.
There’s nothing better than a home-cooked meal to bring everyone to the table, and this roast chicken with herb butter is exactly that. Adapted from The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time by Laurie David, it’s the kind of dish that works just as well for a Sunday dinner as it does for an easy-but-impressive weeknight meal.
The chicken is slathered in a bright, flavorful herb butter made with fresh thyme, rosemary, sage, lemon zest, and a touch of honey. As it roasts, the butter melts into the meat, infusing it with rich flavor, while the shallots and garlic caramelize in the pan. And to finish, a quick Dijon pan sauce made straight from the drippings—no extra effort, just incredible flavor.
Pair this roast chicken recipe with Parmesan smashed potatoes and roasted carrots for a meal that’s simple but special.
“Wonderful, easy, and foolproof recipe.”
What You’ll Need To Make Roast Chicken
- Fresh Thyme, Rosemary, And Sage: Infuse the herb butter with earthy, aromatic flavors that enhance the chicken.
- Shallots And Garlic: Used in both the herb butter and roasting pan, these aromatics add depth, sweetness, and a rich, savory base to the dish.
- Lemon Zest: Brightens the herb butter with a fresh citrus note that balances the richness.
- Honey: Adds a touch of sweetness to the herb butter, enhancing the overall flavor.
- Butter: Softened for the herb butter to keep the chicken moist and flavorful, and added to the sauce for a silky finish.
- Olive Oil: Helps caramelize the shallots and garlic in the roasting pan while keeping the chicken skin crisp.
- Chicken: Using bone-in, skin-on chicken is key for the best flavor and juiciness—the bones help retain moisture, and the skin crisps up beautifully in the oven. You can cut a whole cut-up chicken or 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts.
- Kosher Salt And Black Pepper: Work together to enhance flavor and help crisp the skin.
- Low-Sodium Chicken Broth: Forms the base of the sauce, picking up all the delicious browned bits from the roasting pan.
- Dijon Mustard: Gives the sauce a subtle tang and depth of flavor.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1: Make the herb butter. Finely chop the thyme, rosemary, and sage. In a small bowl, mix the herbs with the shallots, lemon zest, honey, and butter until well combined. Set this mixture aside.
Step 2: Roast the chicken. Toss the shallots and garlic with olive oil in a roasting pan or large oven-safe skillet. Keeping the garlic unpeeled prevents it from burning while still infusing flavor into the pan juices.
Pat the chicken very dry with paper towels. (Removing excess moisture from the skin before roasting is key to getting that crispy, golden-brown exterior.) Place it in the pan over or around the shallots and garlic. Rub the herb butter all over the chicken and under the skin. Getting butter under the skin ensures that the flavors reach the meat, not just the surface. Sprinkle evenly with salt and season with black pepper.
Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until the skin is golden brown. Reduce the heat to 375°F and continue roasting for 15 to 20 minutes, until cooked through. Lowering the temperature after initial browning prevents the chicken from drying out while ensuring even cooking. Total cook time should be under an hour—avoid overcooking.
Transfer the chicken and shallots to a serving platter, cover with foil, and discard the garlic. Letting the chicken rest is important; it allows the juices to redistribute, making the meat more tender and juicy.
Step 3: Make the sauce. Pour off the fat from the roasting pan, leaving the browned bits behind. Those browned bits (fond) are packed with concentrated flavor—they’ll make your sauce deeply savory. Place the pan over high heat, add the chicken broth, and bring to a boil. Whisk in the Dijon mustard and scrape up the brown bits, cooking until reduced by half, 5 to 8 minutes.
Finally, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter.
Pour the sauce into a gravy boat and serve alongside the chicken. (Straining is optional; I never bother.)
Video Tutorial
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Roast Chicken with Herb Butter
Ingredients
For the Herb Butter
- 5 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 5 fresh sage leaves
- 1 shallot, peeled and finely chopped
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
For the Chicken
- 6 shallots, peeled and halved
- 1 whole head garlic, cleaned, unpeeled, and cut in half horizontally
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 chicken, 4 to 4 ½ pounds (1.8 to 2 kg), cut into 4 or 6 pieces (or 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts)
- Herb butter (above)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
For the Sauce
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450°F (235°C) and set an oven rack in the middle position.
- Make the herb butter: Pull the herbs from the stems and finely chop. Combine the chopped herbs, shallots, lemon zest, honey, and butter in a small bowl and blend well. Set aside.
- Place the shallots and garlic in a roasting pan or large oven-safe skillet and toss with the olive oil (it's okay if the garlic breaks apart a bit). Pat the chicken VERY dry with paper towels (this will help the skin to crisp) and place it in the roasting pan. Use a soup spoon to rub the herb butter all over the chicken and under the skin too (if you don't eat the skin, rub a lot of it underneath!). Sprinkle the salt evenly all over the chicken and season with fresh pepper to your liking.
- Place the chicken in the oven and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the skin is golden brown. Turn the heat down to 375°F (190°C); continue to roast for 15 to 20 minutes more, or until done. Chicken should be done in less than an hour; do not overcook.
- Transfer the chicken and the shallots to a serving platter to rest and cover with foil. Discard the garlic.
- Pour off all the fat from the roasting pan, leaving the brown baked-on bits in the bottom. Add the chicken broth and place on the stove over high heat; bring to a boil and whisk in the mustard. Using a whisk or wooden spoon, scrape up and combine the brown bits with the broth and continue to cook until the liquid is reduced by half, 5 to 8 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the butter. Pour the sauce into a gravy boat and serve alongside the chicken. (You can strain the gravy if you'd like, but I never bother.)
Notes
Pair with
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Hi Jennifer, As soon as I put my chicken in the oven, butter started burning and smoked up the whole house! I had to take it out and finish it on a stove top. Any ideas on what went wrong? Thanks!
Hi Alisa, sorry to hear you had a problem with this. Did you place the chicken on a rack that was centered in the oven? The immediate smoking makes me think that the chicken was too close to the heating element.
Thanks for yet another delicious recipe! Make this last night for Rosh Hashanah, great way to kick off the New Year!
I make several of your recipes a week and made this for the first time tonight. It was fantastic! My husband loved it and he is picky…sigh…I even messed up the herb butter and couldn’t find sage. It was still delicious. My husband used the garlic from the pan to spread on a baguette. I didn’t even bother to make the gravy, but I will next tine. Served it with your make ahead mashed potatoes and thyme carrots.
Absolutely Amazing, did not change a thing, and my pickier little guy loved it!
I definitely recommend this recipe.
Made this for Christmas Eve dinner. The flavor was great but I was disappointed that the chicken turned out a bit rubbery and I wanted your comment on what I did wrong. Here is what I did:
– followed recipe using 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. The pan was a bit crowded with breasts snuggled next to each other.
– for the initial roasting at 425 also had pan of carrots in oven for the Curried Carrot recipe.
– I roasted for 35 min at 425 and then 15 min at 375. When I pulled out the temp of thickest part was 175 degrees.
– chicken rested for 15 min before serving.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Correction to my question…..initial roasting temp was 450 degrees, not 425 degrees.
Hi Janice, Glad you enjoyed the chicken but sorry it turned out a bit rubbery. It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong with the cooking process, but I’m surprised they reached 175 that quickly. Were they particularly small chicken breasts? The ideal temperature for chicken is 165, so it sounds like they were a bit overcooked.
Hye there! Any substitute for dijon mustard? Can normal mustard sauce do?
I don’t recommend normal mustard, Natasha – sorry! I’d just leave the Dijon out if you don’t have it. Hope that helps!
This was delish and filled the house with a wonderful aroma. My family came from all corners asking, “when’s dinner?”. I had to omit the garlic due to an allergy, so I added extra shallots and a quartered onion. We will definitely make it again.
Delicious. I used bone in breast and two quarter legs. As usual, a great recipe and made the entire house smell awesome. I paired with roasted garnet yams and your beet and goat cheese salad. Can’t wait for leftovers tomorrow- maybe all the ingredients on a bed of brown rice or quinoa. (Chicken, goat cheese, salad dressing, beets and yams.)
My kids are learning how to cook so this is the first roast chicken recipe my 16 year old attempted (while I peeled and chopped the root veggies we roasted along side the chicken). The chicken we roasted was appx. 10 lbs, so it took nearly 60 min in our convection oven. My son followed the directions as written. There is enough chicken left to make chicken soup. I’m talking two adults and two teenagers. We all went back for seconds. My son’s comment after first bite: “I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but this is *amazing*”. Given the amount of food we put away tonight, we all concur. We skipped making gravy and included the drippings in with the leftovers as it simmers for tomorrow’s lunch. I can only imagine how good the chicken soup we have tomorrow will taste.
Thank you, Jenn!
HI Jenn, I love your recipes and have tried many. My only issue if there is one, is cooking any chicken skin period. I understand it adds flavor and keeps meat moist underneath and all but I can’t get myself around it. Is there anything us non chicken skin eaters can do to still make a good Sunday night roasted chicken?
Hi Luanne, Glad you like the recipes! I would prepare the chicken with the skin on (as it holds in moisture when roasting) and remove the skin before serving. When applying the herb butter, rub a lot of it underneath the skin so you get lots of that flavor.