My super popular Whole Roasted Chicken with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto gets an instant upgrade with Grow and Behold’s Sara’s Spring Chicken. Watch Naf Hanau and I show you how easy this holiday and everyday recipe can be. Lookout for Naf’s top tips for perfect roast chicken and my #1 tip: Never underestimate the power of quality ingredients. Check out my favorite online meat purveyor, Grow and Behold, for no antibiotics, no hormones, OU Kosher, pasture-raised, beef and poultry.
Note we made a few changes to the recipe below, you can choose whichever method you prefer.
1. Rub all the pesto underneath the skin (don’t forget the legs!).
2. Season chicken skin with salt, pepper, paprika and olive oil.
3. Place on a roasting rack inside a roasting pan.
4. Pour 2-3 cups of chicken stock (or a combo of stock + water) into the bottom of the roasting pan. Add 2 lemons, halved, to the pan.
5. Roast low and slow 300°F for 70-90mins (convection) or 325°F for 70-90mins until the legs are loose. (Watch the video to see what that means). Loosely cover with foil if skin is browning too quickly.
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6. Squeeze lemons into pan juices. Carve chicken and serve with pan juices.
Sundried Tomato Pesto Roasted Chicken
Servings
Ingredients
- 1 cup packed fresh basil leaves
- 3 tablespoons pine nuts
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/3 cup sundried tomatoes
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 5-pound Grow & Behold whole chicken
Instructions
- In a food processor, pulse basil, pine nuts, garlic, sundried tomatoes, salt and pepper a few times until coarsely chopped. With processor running, slowly add olive oil until combined.
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Place chicken on a greased sheet pan or roasting pan. Completely cover with pesto, lifting skin on top of breast and rubbing underneath the skin as well.
- Loosely cover with foil and roast for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue to roast until a thermometer inserted into the breast reaches 165°F, about 1 hour.
- Carve into pieces and serve.
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Sun-dried tomatoes are kind of strong, not exactly the same as fresh cooked tomatoes though and he can always remove the skin and stay away from the coating.
really want to make this friday night but my brother doesn’t really like tomatoes. Does the pesto give it a strong tomato flavour?
Awesome SUB (thanks for letting us know it worked so well!) and thumbs up to the spatchcock
AWESOME! Yes sometimes it’s hard to get everything to stick and/or get under the skin — but the more you get it in there the more the flavor penetrates!
YAY YAY YAY!!!! I AM SO SO SO happy you enJOYed! What did you think about the courses?
Just wanted to say I loved this recipe! I’m kind of obsessed with sun dried tomato pesto. I doubled the recipe because it sounded so delicious, and I was right! I used it on a pizza as the sauce last night, fantastic. Thanks Jamie, I am signing up for the Rosh Hashana class you are offering today!
My family loved this chicken. Rubbing the the pesto mixture on the chicken was a little challenging (no one else seemed to have any problem) so I put a lot of this in the cavity. Very very tasty, juicy and tender.
Awesome SUB (thanks for letting us know it worked so well!) and thumbs up to the spatchcock
I made the pesto using sunflower seeds instead of pine nuts & it worked just as well. I used a whole chicken, but I spatchcocked it and rubbed the pesto on the inside of the chicken too. Cutting open the chicken let it cook faster and the pesto smelled amazing. Tasted amazing too.
Hi Adina, thanks for sharing your feedback. I am sorry you didn’t find it flavorful enough. Perhaps next time you will be willing to try doubling the pesto and serving some extra on the side for dipping and/or drizzling on top just before serving.
YAY!!!!! Love two thumbs up 🙂 Thanks so much for noting that you had enough pesto for the 4 extra thighs.
Hope you enJOYed it over Shabbos – the garlic cubes have a different taste and strength than fresh so I can see the need to tweak that a bit.
So happy you found a new family favorite!
YUM YUM YUM! Lucky boys!
I used a used a 5 lb chicken as the recipe suggested and found that the rub was not robust enough as the flavor did not fully carry through. That being said I served it to my family and not a morsel was left.
I made the sun dried tomato pesto roasted chicken for dinner, added 4 extra thighs to the whole fryer and there was not a morsel left. The four of us devoured every last bit of it and it was absolutely delicious!! I had plenty of pesto sauce for the four additional thighs, following the recipe without making any changes. We give this recipe an enthusiastic two thumbs up!!!
Making this now for tonight(shabbos) I just made a few miner changes. First used frozen garlic cubes first used 3 then felt it needed more so added 2 more. Also I’m not using a whole chicken I’m using 4 quarters but mine are skinless also I’m baking red potatoes cut in half with it. It smells really good can’t wait for shabbos to have it.
I made this last night and it was a hit. Everyone loved it, ‘tho my youngest felt the pesto taste was a little strong. My wife asked we add it to the rotation.
Instead of a whole chicken, I used a chicken already cut up in 1/8ths. That helped reduce the uncovered cooking time by about 1/2. For me, the best part was how simple the pesto was – and it smelled great. If not for rubbing the pesto on the raw chicken, I would have wanted to lick my hands afterwards.
I didn’t have a whole chicken, so I tried the recipe with chicken fillets. I made the dried tomatoe pesto as described, then rubbed the paste onto each chicken fillet and grilled it in a pan with some olive oil. I made it for my boys lunch,they really liked it.
Excellent (and I am a HUGE garlic person and come from a family of HUGE garlic people (my parents are from Transylvania 🙂 BUT my Hubby sadly isn’t and always complains when I overload on the garlic 🙂
Haha! I get it. I made a huge quantity of a potato dish for shul and thought to myself, I need to tone it down for the people who aren’t as herb/garlic/spice crazy as me- thank you, it was really delicious!
oh awesome I am so happy you give it up thumbs up and so thankful that you noted your adjustments for everyone.
sounds delish hope you enJOY!
Very delicious, I made a few tweaks as well based on what was in the fridge. My family are big garlic people, so I added a bit more, and we used breasts. Came out SO yummy! Would definitely use this again.
This chicken recipe is great. I made a few adjustments based in ingredients I had on hand. I used chicken thighs and drumsticks and I substituted almonds for the pine nuts. The pesto is delicious and leaves the chicken moist and full of flavor. Thumbs up.
Planning on making this for friday night with red potatoes and string beans
YUM and thank you so much for your substitution and cook time notes!
This was really tasty! I subbed walnuts for the pine nuts and pesto tasted perfect. My chicken was on the small side (3.5 lbs) so I reduced the cooking time by twenty minutes. Chicken was moist and very flavorful. I also sprinkled extra kosher salt on top to really enhance all the flavors.
i leave the pine nuts out as i am allergic to them. im looking forward to making this sundreied tomato pesto as a dip alone
will be delish!
Looks good!
and tastes good too!