Roast Chicken Project #11 - Low and Slow Roast Chicken

I can't believe we are at the penultimate recipe in The Roast Chicken Project! Somehow, it's been 11 months since I started this thing, which is crazy to think about but also not really that surprising, considering how quickly 2016 has seemed to pass. And I suppose it's appropriate that just as my ability to muster any energy or excitement for the rest of this year seems to be waning, I've added a roast chicken recipe that requires extremely little effort on your part. 

What I've essentially done here is take Roast Chicken #3 and dial down the effort involved, if that's even possible. In fact, you could call this edition even Lazier Chicken. The bird gets dusted with a mix of salt, pepper, and celery salt, the oven gets cranked to a mere 275 degrees, and you get to sit back for about 3 or 4 hours and binge watch The Americans (well, that's how I cooked it, you can binge whatever you want). Then, when your house smells amazing and you start to feel a bit hungry, you can wander over to the oven, turn the heat up to 350, and baste the bird with your favorite BBQ sauce. You then have half an hour to assemble an easy salad, and then you are sitting down to a dinner of roast chicken with sticky, sweet/tart/spicy skin, moist meat, and almost no effort involved, including carving. This was another result where I could literally pull the legs right off the bird, no knife needed, and this one gave new meaning to "falling off the bone" because even the breast meat came off in my hand. 

Are you sold yet?

Low and Slow BBQ Roast Chicken

• One, 3-4 lb whole chicken
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp celery salt
• BBQ sauce of your choice, for basting and serving

1. Heat oven to 275 degrees. Mix the seasonings together in a small bowl then sprinkle over both sides of the chicken and in the cavity. 
2. Roast the chicken, breast side up, uncovered, for 3-4 hours (check temperature at 3 hours, you will likely need a little longer for larger birds, but at this point the thigh meat should read between 145 and 150 degrees.)
3. Remove the chicken from the oven and turn the heat up to 350 degrees. Flip the chicken breast side down and baste with enough BBQ sauce to thickly coat the bird. Roast for 15 minutes, then flip chicken breast side up, baste again, and roast another 15 minutes. At this point, thigh meat should read about 160-165 degrees. 
4. Remove the chicken from the oven and let rest about 15 minutes. Carve and serve with extra sauce, if desired.

Notes:

• Pay close attention to the temperature of the chicken at the 3 hour mark. I roasted about a 4 1/2 lb bird, and left it a little too long in the 275 stage (hey, The Americans is a riveting show, ok?). As a result, after two turns at 350 degrees, my bird was beautiful but the breast meat was a little too dry to call this a huge success. It was perfectly delicious with extra BBQ sauce, but yours can be better. If you think the temperature is already too high after 3 hours at 275, you can shorten the roasting time at 350, to either 5 or 10 minutes per side.
• I used the South Caroline Style Mustard BBQ sauce from my pulled pork adventure back in June. The mustardy sauce was excellent with chicken and gave the bird a lovely, turmeric yellow glow. I also used the rest of the original batch of BBQ sauce and didn't die, so that answers any lingering questions about how long it could keep. The current answer is at least 6 months, yeah!