Sticky Chicken

This is my most requested recipe! It requires slow roasting in the oven, so make sure you have the time to watch over it a bit and show it some love. This chicken is flavorful all the way through. I hope this becomes a regular at your table as it is on mine!

Ingredients

Instructions

Thaw the chicken first. When the chicken is thawed, removed the gizzard and livers from the cavity. You can use those to make chicken stock or maybe you have a pet who likes chicken livers. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Gather all the spices. Prepare the rub by mixing all the rub ingredients together: black pepper, garlic powder, white pepper, thyme, onion powder, cayenne pepper, paprika and salt. Stir until they are well combined.

Rub the chicken with the spice mixture, making sure to massage the spice on top of and under the skin and inside the cavity. You will have plenty of rub to thoroughly coat the chicken.

Stuff the cavity of the bird with celery, onion and garlic.

Place the bird in a pan that has a wider rim and roast in the oven for 5 hours. Baste the chicken every hour with the pan juices. If there are no pan juices the first time you baste, add some water to the pan of the baking dish. Basting the chicken every hour causes the skin of the chicken to become “sticky.” If you have a smoker, you can smoke the chicken for the appropriate amount of time that you would smoke a whole chicken. I have had smoked sticky chicken before, and the smoker adds a whole other level of flavor to the chicken. If you do not have a smoker, oven-roasting results in a tender and juicy chicken.

Allow the chicken to rest 10 minutes before carving. Whether you smoke the chicken or oven-roast it, this chicken is absolutely delicious either way. In the photo below, I served the Sticky Chicken with Sesame Beans and roasted sweet potatoes on this day. Almost any vegetable or side dish serves well with this chicken. Y’all….this one is a keeper!