Every Friday night, I roast a chicken. My children are willing to consume any chicken dish as long as it contains fruit. Such is our unspoken agreement.
This past week, I used apples to lure my children to their protein dish. The combination of rosemary with apples was a natural pairing and the balsamic vinegar, which caramelized during roasting, sweetly permeated the entire chicken.
As I served this up to my family and asked how they liked it, my younger son exclaimed, “Mommy, it’s AMAZING!” Needless to say, I’m quite happy with the outcome of this little experiment, which yielded good results on the very first try.
Comments
69 responses to “Rosemary Apple Chicken”
I’d love to make this chicken, but I have questions:
1. Do I leave the skin on the apples? The recipe says cored and sliced, but it doesn’t say peeled so I assume I leave the skin on, right?
2. Apple type preference?
3. If I bake a bigger chicken, I guess I should just use a meat thermometer to know when it’s done?
Michelle, thanks for your questions! As you can see in the photo the skin is on the apples. Any apple will work for this, I used gala. Yes, I always use a meat thermometer to check for doneness :-)
Dear Miss Elana:
I’ve discovered your Rosemary Apple Roasted Chicken recipe about two months ago and made it for my PICKY 9 years old granddaughter. Both she and I were amazed of how light and delicious it tasted. I did put your recipe on my computer and saved it. It is not that difficult to make and it is just too delicious.
Thank you for sharing your EXCELLENT recipes with others.
Ji Hee Kim
Ji, thanks so much for letting me know this is just too delicious!!!
I make this recipe last night and it was amazing! However I didn’t have all the same ingredients so I substituted the following:
~Cinnamon Pear Vinegar for Balsamic Vinegar
~Sage for Rosemary
Also I tossed some cinnamon on the apples stuffed the chicken and tossed the remaining around it. Great Fall weather food!
Adrienne, so glad to hear this chicken was amazing :-)
I made this recipe yesterday and really loved it. Amazing one dear. Thanks for sharing such a great recipe with us!
You’re welcome Zameer!
Made this for Sunday dinner. Delicious! Like another writer, I wanted to bake a larger chicken (for leftovers) but my roaster is too small for both chicken & apples. So, I cut the apples in fourths, increased the baking time by 30 minutes, used a 9 X 13 baking pan (only 3 apples fit), and tented the chicken, bottom side up, for the first 30 minutes. Then, I took off the tent, flipped the chicken to the breast side up, and baked it the 90 additional minutes. It looked just like the picture – beautiful color – and it was delicious.
I made this chicken recipe last Friday and I’m making it again tonight. It was amazing. The perfect blend of sweet and salty. It’s probably the best chicken I’ve ever had. For tonight’s chicken, I brined it overnight with kosher salt and coconut sugar. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I love your recipes!!!
Aaargh!
I was so much looking forward to this, following all of the instructions and ended up with a rubbery chicken! Boo! To be fair, I think the chicken was the problem, not the recipe – the flavour was fantastic.
Any ideas as to why my organic chicken was so rubbery??
Many thanks!
Ania
PS. I totally love your recipes – best recipe site online! I recommend it to everyone! :)
Hi Ania,
The instructions look ok to me.
A couple of things to try for the future:
Washing the chicken is not recommended now, any bugs will be killed in the oven.
Put something under the chicken in the oven. The apples would be a great choice. After cooking, take out the apples you want to serve. Add some flour to the oven tray and mix it in with a wooden spoon. Add some stock from what ever veg you are cooking and a splash of white wine. Reduce that down, and strain for the most delicious gravy.
Finally while making the gravy let the chicken stand and relax for 30 minutes under a sheet of tin foil. Any juices that come out can be added to the gravy.
This will double the flavour and give you the juicy chicken that you are after.
Thanks and good luck next time!
“Washing the chicken is not recommended now, any bugs will be killed in the oven.” – Seriously!!!
Even if the bugs are killed, they will get baked with the chicken, and you can never separate them.
I am not sure if you are joking or not.
I have also heard this several times, do not wash your chicken…the germs are spread in the kitchen.
Do not wash chicken before cooking. The cooking kills the bacteria. The only thing that washing the chicken does is contaminate your sink and kitchen counters. USDA recommends not washing chicken before cooking. Cook the chicken breast to an internal temperature of 170 degrees F. and the thigh to 165 degrees F. Trust me, I am a dietitian and chef with a PhD in foods and nutrition.
Others have already replied helpfully long ago, Eric, but I just wanted to point out to anyone reading this, that bacteria exists everywhere, and rinsing it is not going to get them all off anyway. Killing them is what we’re after, since they’re there anyway….
Thanks Maren!
try brining the chicken first
Whoa. Just made this since I wanted something fast and simple, yet a bit more flavorful than regular old roast chicken. It. was. Delicious. I used butter instead of olive oil. The chicken was juicy and flavorful, and sweet mama…those apples! I had a smaller bird and smaller roasting dish so I didn’t use four, but I wish I had. The apples came out so good after being roasted in all those savory chicken juices. This will be my go-to roasted bird recipe. SO GOOD! Thank you!
I love this recipe… Especially with cauli mash to soak up the sauce. Yum yum!
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