Yes, You Can Pan Roast Chicken for One Without Hours of Work

One of my favorite parts of roast chicken is the crispy skin. In fact, making the perfect roast chicken with crispy skin and juicy meat turned into a bit of an obsession for me, and I literally spent years perfecting my method. It involves wet brining the chicken before air-drying it for a day.

Spending two days to make a roast chicken is understandable if you're feeding a family, but it's an awful lot of effort to go through if it's for just for yourself. That's why I wanted to see if I could make a single serving sized portion of roast chicken with crispy skin.

Because a wet brine(salt solution) inevitably waterlogs the skin, I decided to use a dry brine (just salt). This not only seasons the chicken faster, it also draws excess water out of the skin through osmosis. To keep the chicken from getting too salty (or dried out), it's important to only apply the salt to the skin. To infuse a bit of flavor into the chicken I put a layer of herbs and garlic on top of the salt before wrapping it all up for 30 minutes to do its thing.

After removing the excess salt and wiping away the liquid released by the skin, the chicken is rubbed with butter before being pan-fried with a weight on top to increase the contact patch between the skin-side of the chicken and the hot pan. This also speeds up the cooking. Finally the chicken is flipped before going into the oven for a few minutes to finish off.

Aside from crispy skin, I think my second favorite part of roasting a chicken is roasting vegetables under it so that they absorb the flavors of the chicken, ultimately caramelizing in the chicken fat. Just because you're making a single portion doesn't mean you have to forgo this treasure. Just par cook the veggies in the microwave. For onions and baby carrots, it takes about 2 minutes, but you should also be able to do potatoes like this, just given them a bit of a head start before adding in the onions and carrots. Cooked in the same pan as the chicken they're still able to absorb the chickeny goodness while turning a golden brown.

The result of 15 minutes of effort (and 30 minutes of waiting), is a flavorful crisp-skinned roast chicken dinner for one, complete with caramelized veggies! I'd be lying if I told you it's as juicy as a wet brined whole roast chicken, but because the chicken is boneless, it not only cooks faster it also cooks more predictably, making it harder to overcook.