It is getting to that fowl part of the year…like where you eat more roasted birds, and enjoy the delightful weather that we get in the PNW about now. Autumn is going by too fast for my taste!
We have an exciting event coming up where Emily and I will be doing a tutorial on our poultry spice rub and one of our essential oil cocktails. We are so grateful that we are getting more and more opportunities to share our knowledge and experience cooking with essential oils.
Emily has kind of put the task on me to take command of most of the meat recipes on this blog. I am fine with this as I get a lot of pleasure working with and experimenting with essential oils and spices to come up with the most flavorful meat rubs.
The first rub I made was used on our peach moonshine ribs, which was a delicious rub, but we felt since this was more the time for roasted poultry that we would try making a rub that could be used on chicken or turkey!
I always know when I have done well too because Emily will literally sit there and have a nose orgasm for about 5 minutes putting the rub up to her nose. She is weird but I love her!
And speaking of turkey, this would be a great rub to add to your Thanksgiving turkey this year, but for this recipe, I actually decided to give it a whirl on a chicken for its first debut! Plus, we had a whole chicken from our Butcher Box already so it seemed like just the right thing to do!
I was not disappointed with the results!
For the dry brine method, you want to rub the entire chicken including the cavity with the spice rub. This ensures getting the best flavor.
And, if you’re willing to plan ahead slightly it will make all the difference in the world!
Letting it rest in the fridge overnight also dries the chicken skin out a little bit so you get that nice crispy effect that we all look for. Getting that crispy skin tastes great, but it also locks in a lot of moisture so the meat is more tender and delicious. I mean, I believe that this skin was perfect and crispy, I can’t say 100% because the skin is Emily’s favorite part and she always steals most of it before I get a chance to!
The sacrifices we make for those that we love!
We just roasted the chicken, vegetables, and fruit all together in a giant cast iron pan. If you know us at all you’ll know we will always use cast iron when we can.
One of our favorite squashes is delicata squash so it seemed a fitting squash to use. We chopped up the squash, onions, apples, and oranges and just threw it all in the pan. Putting the chicken on top of the veggies also gives it a bit of a lift off the pan so that the juices can drain properly and not make the chicken soggy at the bottom.
And the best part is that the squash, apples, and onions soak up some of the juice from the chicken. We didn’t know what was better, the chicken or the vegetables!!
As we have mentioned before and probably will mention again, using essential oils with meat produces amazing results. Because essential oils are lipophilic (meaning they are drawn to fatty tissues) the flavor absorbs into the meat as effectively as the essential oils absorb into our bodies for therapeutic effects. We discovered this effect when we did our ribs almost two years ago and it still amazes me every time how effective it is!
One question we get from a lot of people is: don’t the essential oils clump up the spice rub since they are an oil? No, they don’t! And as we have stressed before, you don’t need that much to get the flavor you want.
If you make this recipe or just the spice rub itself let us know what you think in the comment section below! We would love to hear your feedback!
Cinnamon Sage roasted chicken with autumn vegetables
Ingredients
- 4 pound whole chicken
- 2 apples, cored, sectioned, and tossed in lemon juice
- 1 medium sweet onion, cut into wedges
- 1 delicata squash, cut into half moon rings
- 1 orange, sliced
- 15 sage leaves, fried (optional to garnish)
Cinnamon Sage Dry Rub
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 2 tablespoons ground sage
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 2 drops doTERRA black pepper essential oil*
- 1 drop doTERRA cinnamon essential oil*
- 1 drop doTERRA ginger essential oil*
Instructions
- Pat the interior and exterior of chicken dry with paper towel and then rub with oil. Massage dry rub into oiled skin and place back in refrigerator uncovered overnight (or at least for an hour) to allow seasoning/oils to soak into chicken and allow the skin to dry completely.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Add 2 Tbsp olive oil to the bottom of a 12-inch cast iron pan or baking dish, place the apples, onions, and orange slices in the pan and place the chicken on top. Tie the legs together and tuck the wings. Bake uncovered for 1 hour 15 minutes or until the internal temperature of 165 degrees has been reached in the breast meat. Remove from oven and let rest for 15-20 minutes to retain the juiciness.
- While the chicken is cooking, heat 4 tbsp over medium high heat. When the oil is hot enough that water flicking from your fingertips makes it sizzle place individual sage leaves into the oil. Remove with tongs when they start to darken and place on a paper towel for the oil to drain. Sprinkle with salt. These sage leaves are an optional garnish, but they are one of our favorite parts. We always have to cook twice as much so that we still have some for the chicken. They are seriously tasty!
- Once the chicken has rested you can either delicately carve it or just dig in and destroy it like we did, either way I guarantee you will enjoy this recipe.Happy roasting!
Cinnamon Sage Dry Rub
- Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and drip the essential oils on top. Mix together thoroughly until all clumps of brown sugar are broken up and ingredients look evenly distributed. Use immediately or store in an air tight container.
Notes
