Healthy roast chicken

A roasted chicken is a delicious meal for every season in winter with braised red cabbage and in the summer with salad. There are a million ways to cook a chicken and this one is extremely healthy when packed with vegetables. Making gravy out of the pan juices and wine is a great flavorful, yet lighter version of a topping.

Ingredients

One lemon, two springs of chopped rosemary, two springs of chopped thyme, six to eight chopped cloves of garlic, sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, one tablespoon of olive oil, one whole chicken, 300g new potatoes, 1/2 butternut squash or the same quantity of carrots and parsnips, 2 chopped red onions, and 250 ml of white wine.

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Place one grated lemon zest into the bowl and add the rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil to make a fine mixture and rub it under the chicken skin. Put lemons cut in half into the chicken cavity. Optionally, brush olive oil or butter onto the chicken skin with some salt. For healthier recipe skip this step.

Roast the chicken for 20 minutes and then turn the oven down to 190 degrees and continue roasting for another 50 minutes. The roasting rule goes: 20 minutes per pound of chicken plus 20 minutes.

Place the new potatoes, vegetables, sliced onion and garlic cloves into the roasting tray, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with olive oil. Roast for an hour.

Leave it to cool for about ten minutes before serving and while it is resting use ingredients to make gravy. To make delicious gravy, pour the juices from the roasting tray into a small saucepan and add wine stirring quickly.

Health facts

Lemons contain a lot of vitamin C that serves as a mighty antioxidant. Vitamin C helps to neutralize free radicals that may destroy healthy cells in tissues and cause inflammation and swelling. It also helps to prevent the damage to the blood vessels and the formation of cholesterol plague on the artery walls.

It is best to start roasting the breast side down so that the juices flow around the breast. Cooking should be finished by roasting the breast side up and basting the chicken repeatedly to make it juicy and soft from the additional moisture. It is best to cook the chicken with the skin to seal in the juices, but the skin should be removed before eating because it contains the high amount of fat.