Sunday Night Roast Chicken with Herb Butter
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From Laurie David’s book, The Family Dinner, this roast chicken is a great dish for creating cozy family moments around the table.
This roast chicken comes from Laurie David’s cookbook, The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time. The book is so much more than just a collection of interesting recipes — though there are many by co-author Kirstin Uhrenholdt — it’s an inspirational guide to making dinnertime a special ritual in your home.
David, best known as the producer of An Inconvenient Truth and ex-wife of Seinfeld creator Larry David, understands that dinnertime is not always easy: life is busy, kids are antsy or texting, husbands are distracted, and a meal that takes two hours to prepare is inhaled in less than ten minutes.
To help, she offers lots of recipes and fun ideas like theme nights, table games and conversation starters to make dinner fun and encourage families to linger at the table. She also shares traditions and candid stories from her own parenting journey—from babies to teenagers to divorce—and shows how the simple ritual of dinner kept everyone connected and together through it all. I’m a big fan of hers (and her ex) and loved how the book felt like chatting over coffee at her kitchen table.
If you take only a few ideas from the book, I think you’ll find it worthwhile. For me, the “aha moment” was the chapter on gratitude. I realized that dinner is not just about the food—you need rituals to set the tone. Taking a moment to appreciate the meal and people around us helps us disconnect from our busy lives and ease into quality family time. And it doesn’t have to be religious. David offers pages of suggestions, from prayers to quotations to funny childhood poems (my kids liked the old camp blessing, “Rub a Dub Dub, Thanks for the Grub, Yea God!”)—mix it up, come up with your own, whatever works for you.
To be honest, I loved the message of this book so much that I didn’t even care about the recipes, but I tried and few and, to my delight, they were delicious. I felt this one for Sunday Night Roast Chicken really captured the essence of the book, which is about creating cozy moments for your family around the dinner table. Try serving it with my Parmesan Smashed Potatoes and Roasted Carrots with Thyme. Enjoy!
You can purchase The Family Dinner Book here.
Note: I’ve taken some liberties in adapting this recipe. The original version calls for a whole chicken, but I prefer a cut-up chicken instead because it’s much easier to serve. I’ve also made some minor changes to the ingredients and method, but the finished product is pretty much the same. If your grocery store carries a “Poultry Blend” herb mixture, buy that–it contains all the herbs you’ll need.
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Sunday Night Roast Chicken with Herb Butter
From Laurie David’s book, The Family Dinner, this roast chicken is a great dish for creating cozy family moments around the table.
Ingredients
For the Herb Butter
- 5 3-inch sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 3-inch 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, clean, unpeeled and cut in half horizontally
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 chicken, 4 – 4 ½ pounds, cut into 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.
- Make the herb butter: Pull herbs from the stems and chop finely. Combine the chopped herbs, shallots, lemon zest, honey and butter in small bowl and blend well. Set aside.
- Place the shallots and garlic in a roasting pan 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 in the roasting pan; do not crowd. 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 kosher salt evenly all over the chicken and season with fresh pepper to your liking. Place the chicken in the oven and roast for 35-40 minutes, or until the skin is golden brown. Turn the heat down to 375 degrees; continue to roast for 15-20 minutes more, or until done. Chicken should be done in less than an hour; do not overcook.
- Transfer the chicken and the shallots to serving platter to rest and cover with foil. Discard the garlic. Pour off all the fat, leaving the brown baked-on bits in the bottom of the roasting pan. Add the chicken broth and place on the stove over high heat; bring to a boil and whisk in Dijon mustard. Using whisk or wooden spoon, stir up and combine the brown bits with the broth and continue to cook until the liquid is reduced by half, 5-8 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the butter. Pour the sauce into a gravy boat and serve alongside chicken. (If you want to get fancy, you can strain the gravy but I never bother.)
Pair with
Nutrition Information
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- Calories: 1,237
- Fat: 85 g
- Saturated fat: 28 g
- Carbohydrates: 27 g
- Sugar: 10 g
- Fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 91 g1
- Sodium: 1,376 mg
- Cholesterol: 371 mg
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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I made this a few weeks ago and it was divine! I used dairy free butter under the skin and it worked just as well, so moist! The bird looked beautiful too, perfect crackly golden skin. My husband approved!
I’ve used this recipe before and I loved it! Thank you for all you do. Publish a book already!
I was thinking I could maybe use this recipe on my thanksgiving turkey? I bought a bone in 5.4 lb turkey breast. (There’s only two of us.) will the cook time and butter work? And is it safe to butter the night before?
Thanks, Tori! Hoping to have good news about a book to share soon 🙂 I think this recipe would work really well with a turkey breast. Cook time will be about the same but keep an eye on it; hard to say for certain. And yes, fine to butter the night before.
Delicious!! Food coma! Thank you so much ? We had a lot of left over turkey so I’ll be using your quesadilla recipe tonight! Thanks again!
Hi Jenn,
Made this for dinner tonight using half a roaster chicken but with full amounts of everything else. It turned out delicious and so moist and tender! Served with a side of mashed potatoes, rice, and roasted broccoli. Thank you for an awesome recipe!
Hi Jenn-
I’ve had great success with many of your recipes and plan to try this next. If I substitute dried poultry seasoning as you mentioned, what amount do I use?
Thanks!
Hi Sharon, Sorry for the confusion — I meant the poultry fresh herb blend, not dried.
Can this be prepped the night before & kept in the fridge before popping in the oven when company arrives?
Absolutely 🙂
RE the Sunday night Roast Chicken:
1. Does the chicken get covered with a lid/foil in the oven while roasting?
2. Is the roasting temp/time for regular or “convection” roasting
Thanks!
Hi Karen, No lid and the temp/time is for regular roasting.
Jenn
enjoy your site and recipes, in this recipe what is the point of an entire head of garlic.
It’s not inside the chicken just in the open pan, will it add any flavor at all to the roasting chicken, wouldn’t it be better inside the bird.
Hi Jim, Glad you are enjoying the recipes. Good question. The garlic simply flavors the juices in the pan. You could definitely put it inside the bird, if you use the whole bird rather than chicken pieces.
Will this recipe work on turkey?
Sure, but you’ll need to adjust the cooking time.
Your recipes are amazing! I would like to try this one but I don’t have fresh sage. How much would I need if I use ground sage?
Hi Peachy, I’d use about a half teaspoon. Hope you enjoy it!
I’m so excited about this recipe! If making it using a full chicken, should I cook it the same way– at the same temp and approximately the same time increments?
Thanks for sharing such wonderful recipes! I love your blog.
Hi Chrystie, It will take longer to cook. Here are instructions: Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position, and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil for easy clean-up. Spray a rack (preferably a v-shape) with non-stick cooking spray and place the chicken on top. Tie the legs together with kitchen string. Roast for 20 minutes, until the skin is golden. Turn the heat down to 375 degrees, and continue to roast for about an hour and ten minutes more, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and thigh. (Keep an eye on it — if it’s browning too quickly, cover it loosely with foil.) Tent the chicken with foil and let rest for about 20 minutes. Tilt the chicken over the roasting pan to release the juices, then transfer to a cutting board. Carve the chicken and serve.