DRY BRINING CHICKEN

This is similar to what we did to our turkey at thanksgiving (minus the duck fat).  

Dry brining chicken in the refrigerator

For these two, we seasoned them with kosher salt and that was it.  Then we put them on a foil lined baking sheet with a wire rack so that air can circulate around them and popped the pan in the fridge.  24/48 hours later and it's ready for cooking.  Take it out about an hour ahead of time to allow it to come to room temperature and since it's already on the pan you'll use for cooking, there's nothing extra to clean.

Dry brined and rubbed with oil

Rub them with olive oil and whatever extra seasonings you want to use, we added some pepper to them after I took this photo.  You can see the one on the left has been rubbed with oil but the one on the right hasn't been done yet.  It's a good way to see how the chicken changes in appearance after time in the fridge.

Then pop them in the oven, roast at 400 and about an hour or so later (temp it to make sure) you have...

Oven roasted chickens after dry brining

...two beautiful roasted chickens!

We always make two because we have one for that evening's dinner and the other one gets to cool down so  I can take the meat off the bones and vacuum seal it for the freezer.  This way, we have a bag of roasted and cooked chicken ready to go for a casserole or pot pie.

I mean, if we have to heat up the oven for one, we might as well do two (once we did three!).  We don't always do the dry brining, sometimes we're tired and just do a regular oven roasting but this method is really worth it if you have the time.