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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Is there a way i could prepare the butter and rub the chicken ahead of time and wait to cook it?
This looks delicious
Sure, Melissa, that should be fine. Enjoy!
This is the most amazing recipe ever!!! I love it… Just now realize it calls for the chicken to be cut up.
For guests, can the chicken be cooked up to a point ahead of time?
Can the gravy be reduced ahead of time, and add the juices reducing further later, just before eating?
Love love love all your recipes… this one is more than 5 stars.
So glad you like the recipes! You can fully cook the chicken ahead of time; the skin just won’t be as crispy. Also, be careful not to overcook it when you reheat it. And I’d also fully prepare the gravy ahead. You can rehat it in the microwave or on the stove. Hope that helps!
Hi, I am planning to make this.. since beef is not available.. and roast chicken is an easy access at the rotisserie shop.. is it still the same with the “Sunday Roast Dinner” of UK?
Hi Jen ,
Planning on making this chicken recipe.
Can you make this recipe using only chicken legs & Thighs?
If so Will the roasting temperature be the same?
Thank you!
Hi Thilini, Thighs and legs should work here without any modifications. Please LMK how it turns out!
This is the second time I made this, so yummy! Very simple and full of flavour. I used a whole chicken, just cooked it a little longer.
wonderful, easy and foolproof recipe. i bought a whole chicken and forgot to ask my butcher to cut it into pieces, but found an amazing video by Thomas Joseph and just followed along – maybe not in one minute, but i managed a clean job in under 5, which was new one for me. “How to Cut a Chicken Into 8 Pieces in Under a Minute – Kitchen Conundrums with Thomas Joseph”
Another solid recipe from OUAC. The herbed butter rubbed on the chicken made it flavorful and took it up a notch, I didn’t have shallots and subbed onions but that was the only substitute (used all fresh herbs). I cut the chicken into eight pieces and the dark meat was juicy but the white meat was somewhat dry. Next time I’ll either leave the chicken whole or quarter it. After reading Jenn’s comments about The Family Cookbook I bought it. My kids grew up eating dinner as a family at the kitchen table together every night but on Friday nights we sat at the dining room table and put on our best clothes and lit candles. It was a priceless ritual even if all they looked forward to was dessert.
HI Jenn!
What would happen to the approx. cook time if I used the skin-on breasts only, but had the butcher take out the bone?
Thanks again,
Elise
Hi Elise, I wouldn’t recommend cooking the chicken with the bones removed and the skin on. That said, if you’ve already had the bones removed, I would roast them at 450° for about 30 minutes. Hope that helps!
Hi Jenn!
I am anxious to try this dish, but was going to use an aluminum roasting pan, because I do not have a stainless steel pan that could sit atop the stove for making the gravy. Is it possible to scrape the brown bits off of the aluminum pan and transfer the pieces to a skillet, and continue the preparation of the sauce that way? Any other suggestions?
Thanks much!
Elise
Sure, Elise, I think that should work. Hope you enjoy!
This was the best chicken I have ever cooked for my family.
It was tender and delicious and the sauce really made it a holiday meal. It will be one of our staples!!
Thank you!!