I’m not sure how the Roast Chicken with Dijon Sauce from the Smitten Kitchen Blog came across my radar, as it’s one of Deb’s older recipes, but I’m glad it did. It wasn’t hard to make at all and the results included the crispiest chicken skin I’ve produced in a while.

This is one of those roasted chicken recipes that you start on the stove, which I normally avoid because why add extra steps to roasted chicken? But really it’s not hard at all, the trick is waiting until the chicken is ready to release from the pan before you flip it. For me that was exactly the 5 minutes given.

This recipe calls for 3 pounds of chicken but it’s easy enough to scale it down to whatever you have. The measurements for the sauce will get a little wonky but you can round them up or down and then adjust as needed. I made 2 pounds of chicken thighs and was able to brown them all in one batch rather than having to do two. If you do a full batch and you have a second pan that would work for this, you can do them all at once and then shift them into one pan before they go into the oven.

I made about a 2/3 recipe of the sauce, and we had quite a bit more than we needed, so next time I might make a smaller batch of that. But if you tend to have a lot of leftovers around it could be nice to have on hand. It’s punchy and salty but doesn’t have that HELLO THIS IS MUSTARD vibe that some mustard sauces can have. Now that I think of it I might actually try freezing the extra, I think it’ll hold up OK.

This is a great, basic roast chicken recipe so you can really serve it alongside anything you want. With the oven being involved anyway, might I recommend some roasted veggies? If you get them going before you start the chicken the timing should work out pretty well.