Oven Roasted Rotisserie Style Onion Chicken

This Oven Roasted Rotisserie Style Onion Chicken is the first whole roasted chicken recipe that I mastered after I first got married to my late husband, Michael,  almost 20 years ago. I started making this recipe with 2 chickens from the very beginning as a time saving method for the week. When I make them, I usually roast the chickens on Sunday evening. One would be for Sunday dinner & the other would be picked clean for an easy meal later that week – or for chicken salad for easy lunches that week.

There is a large variety of dishes that you can throw together in no time with some cooked, shredded chicken sitting in the fridge. And this particular method of cooking the chickens not only produces a wonderfully flavorful and moist chicken for a meal right then, but it is also still super moist and yummy a few days later… and that’s a huge thing in the roasted chicken department if you ask me. Usually leftover chicken has a tendency to get really dry and this one just doesn’t – that’s why I love it so much.

The chickens are stuffed with onions that infuse the entire chicken(s) with enormous flavor while it cooks. That’s one of the secrets to why this dish is so good.

The other ‘secret’ to this recipe is the cooking method. It cooks in the oven at just 250 degrees (yes, that low – trust me on this!) for 5 hours. Low & slow. In turn, it tastes so much like a rotisserie chicken – without the rotation or having a rotisserie cooker. The pan juices caramelize in the bottom of the dish while the chicken turns golden brown & nearly falls off the bone.

You don’t have to make two chickens. You can easily make just one.

But seriously, make 2. It will save you so much time later on having leftover shredded chicken to make a variety of different easy meals … and we all could use a few good time savers!

Print Pin

Oven Roasted Rotisserie Style Chicken

Servings 2 whole chickens

Ingredients

• 5 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1.5 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/2 teaspoon if you don't like heat
• 2 onions quartered
• 2 4 pound whole chickens

Instructions

• In a small bowl, combine the salt, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, thyme, black pepper, & cayenne pepper. Remove and discard the giblets from the chicken and rinse the chicken cavity. Pat dry with paper towel. Rub each chicken inside and out with the spice mixture. Place 1 onion (quartered) into the cavity of each chicken.
• Place chickens in a resealable bag or double wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight, or at least 4 to 6 hours.
• Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
• Place chickens in a roasting pan. Bake uncovered for 5 hours, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees F (85 degrees C). Let the chickens stand for 10 minutes before carving.