Easy Faux Roasted Chicken (5 ingredients!)

This Easy Roasted Chicken Breasts with Butter and Sage (5 ingredients!) uses individual chicken pieces instead of a whole chicken, and is cooked at a lower temperature for a juicy and super tender end result. It’s the perfect easy, weeknight meal!

Easy Roasted Chicken Breasts with Butter and Sage

I have a ridiculous amount of fall meals I love, but the ones I’m truly passionate about, are the ones that are not only comforting and delicious, but easy as well.

Easy Roasted Chicken Breasts fall in this narrow category, as it basically oozes fall and cooler weather, and all you need is a rinsed chicken, a liberal amount of salt, and an oven to achieve a near-perfect dinner. Some of my favorite easy roasted chicken recipes you can find here, here or here.

While you can’t replace the beauty and ‘WOW’ factor of a whole roast chicken, it doesn’t, however, fall in to the next coveted category of being quick. Yes, most of the hands-on time for a roast chicken in minimal, but the cooking time can wander up near an hour and a half, depending on the size of your bird.

Most of the time, this isn’t a problem, since I plan ahead, but when I get an impromptu craving for a roast chicken at approximately 4:30pm, and need dinner on the table by 6pm, I quickly realize, time is not on my side.

Enter: Easy Roasted Chicken Breasts with Butter and Sage

I’ve wanted to create a recipe for months now that mimics the comfort and ease of a traditional roast chicken, but takes a fraction of the time, and today’s faux roast chicken does just that.

Instead of roasting a whole bird, I get a bunch of bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts and roast them individually. Just like my favorite roast chicken recipe, I smother the skin with softened butter, plenty of salt, and freshly chopped sage. 

Because I like for a roast chicken to be a sort of all-in-one type meal, I also nestle diced potatoes alongside while the chicken cooks. The fat and juice from the chicken trickles down on to the potatoes, making some of the potatoes drenched in flavor and some crispy as can be. 

What kind of chicken should you use?

If you want, you could butcher and dissemble a whole chicken yourself to save a few bucks, and to utilize all of the chicken, but I’m too lazy for that. Also, you don’t really need to buy only breasts; if you love dark meat, only buy thighs, if you like a variety, go with breasts, wings, or thighs, all you have to do is adjust the cooking time accordingly.

How to make Easy Roasted Chicken Breasts with Butter and Sage

I almost always use a compound butter to smother the skin and flesh with prior to roasting, but typically I’ll switch up the additions depending on the season. Since we’re entering into fall, I’m using chopped sage, which happens to be my favorite herb this time of year.

Before I add the butter to the chicken, I actually like to let the meat sit out of 20 minutes or so for two reasons.

1. Meat always cooks more evenly when you let it come to room temperature for a while.
2. Because butter solidifies so easily, if you add the butter to a super cold surface, it will seize up and be difficult to massage evenly over the chicken.

Smother the chicken breasts with butter, sprinkle with a liberal amount of salt, and roast!

Typically when I roast a chicken, I’ll crank up the temperature in the oven in the beginning of cooking so the skin gets that nice crispy texture, but I wondered what would happen if I let the chicken cook at a lower temperature to render the fat out slowly while simultaneously facilitating a more tender finished product.

And it worked! These Easy Roasted Chicken Breasts are juicy and tender, and the skin is even crispier than my typical roast chicken.

What to serve with easy roasted chicken breasts

If you want a side that basically cooks itself, before you lay the chicken pieces on your roasting pan, cover the bottom of the pan with a couple of diced potatoes, and season again with a little bit of sage and salt.

What happens is the fat from the chicken drips down and coats the potatoes. Toss them halfway through cooking, and what you’ll end up with are some potatoes that are super crisp, and some potatoes that are drenched in delicious chicken juice. 

Before serving make sure to taste the potatoes for seasoning, they may need a little extra salt and pepper. 

Substitutions and Tips and Tricks for Recipe Success

• Make sure to buy bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. You can also use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. 
• If you don’t like fresh sage, skip it! Butter and salt is all the seasoning you need. 
• The internal temperature of chicken should be 165 degrees on a meat thermometer. 
• Aside from a thermometer, another way to tell how a chicken is undercooked, is to see what color the juices are. If they run clear, it’s done, if they’re still pink, it needs to cook al little bit more. 

Healthy sides to go along your roasted chicken breasts

This Everyday Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad goes with practically everything and is the perfect addition to a classic chicken and potatoes meal. If you want to skip the roasted potatoes, try out our Best Mashed Potatoes Recipe, this one is a winner! If you want to add in another veggie, we LOVE these Roasted Carrots with Pistachio Butter! 

 

For more easy chicken dinners, check out these posts:

Easy Garlic Lime Chicken: : Eazy Peazy Mealz
Greek Roast Chicken: : The Well Fed Yogi
Venetian Chicken Pasta: : Easy Pasta Sauces