Soy Butter Glazed Roast Chicken: a Quick and Easy Weeknight Dinner with Glorious Crispy Skin

I’m sharing a recipe for roast chicken with soy butter glaze today with just an instagram photo to illustrate. The chicken was too good to keep to myself, but I have no materials left today to take a pretty picture with. Food stylists work with food that gets thrown away. Food bloggers work with food that gets eaten. So this instagram picture will have to convince you that this crispy soy glazed roast chicken recipe is worth trying. This is a quick and easy dinner you’ll want to add to your repertoire… tout de suite.

I do most of my food photography in the daylight. Anytime of day when it’s overcast, or in the morning or evening when it’s bright and sunny. I have nice daylight simulation lightbulbs that do a decent job in a pinch or during the long Chicago winters, but have found that found that those night time shots usually come out completely bleh.  So I shoot leftovers in the calm of the morning, after the children have run out the door to school. Bathed in the soft glow of the morning light, with Baby Sophie occupied with a pile of colorful napkins, I can play with my lens, with the direction of the light, and get creative. To tell you the truth, once I stopped trying to get the perfect shot with a tableful of hungry people staring at me, my enjoyment of family dinner grew exponentially, and my pictures improved as well.

But enough about photography. Back to the chicken at hand. This is another one of those recipes that cooks itself while you’re out an about on a busy night. It forgives homework stress, diaper blowouts, and even sunset strolls, welcoming you home with the aroma of an amazing dinner. The glaze is just a few tablespoons of soy sauce and butter. Brush it on a few times during cooking, and the skin will transform, turn golden brown and irresistible. I won’t even both taking a picture of the leftovers in the light of day: all the gorgeous skin is long gone!

To truly make this an easy, one pan dinner, I threw in three cups of peeled and diced sweet potatoes to roast with the chicken. You won’t see any gorgeous pictures of them either. They’re all gone as well.

I was inspired to try this new glaze instead of my traditional roasted chicken recipe by a Christian Delouvrier recipe in the Saveur 100 Issue. To keep things simple and less smoky, I reduced the cooking temperature, eliminated the decorum of tying the legs, and didn’t stuff the cavity with any herbs or garlic. Feel free to embellish the recipe to your liking.

Yield: 6-8

Author: Vanessa Druckman

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Soy Butter Glazed Roast Chicken

a Quick and Easy Weeknight Dinner with Glorious Crispy Skin

Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 1 H & 30 MTotal time: 1 H & 35 M

Ingredients

• 2 chickens
• 3 Tablespoons of butter
• ¼ cups of soy sauce
• 3 cups of large diced sweet potatoes (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave and add the soy sauce.
3. Remove the chicken from packaging, being sure to remove any organs inside. NOthing worse than a gorgeous roasted chicken with a bag of melted plastic inside. Trust me. Been there. Done that.
4. Paint the chicken generously with the butter soy mixture. Put the chicken in the oven. Cook it for 90 minutes, until the juices run clear and not pink when you prick the thigh. During cooking, baste the chicken two more times during cooking, every 30 minutes.
5. If you’d like an easy side dish, peel and cut the sweet potato into large chunks, about an inch wide. After the chicken has been coking for 30 minutes, add the sweet potatoes to the bottom of the pan. When you next baste the chicken, also baste the sweet potatoes with the soy butter mixture. The sweet potatoes will be tender yet crispy when the chicken is ready.