Roasted Orange Chicken
Updated April 16, 2024
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 5small tangerines or clementines
- ½packed cup dark brown sugar
- ¼cup soy sauce
- 1½teaspoons rice vinegar or distilled white vinegar
- 1teaspoon ground cayenne or other hot red ground chile
- 1(4-pound) whole chicken
- Salt and black pepper
- 8slices peeled fresh ginger
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
828 calories; 47 grams fat; 13 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 19 grams monounsaturated fat; 10 grams polyunsaturated fat; 41 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 35 grams sugars; 60 grams protein; 1392 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Step 2
Squeeze ¼ cup juice from 2 to 3 tangerines into a small bowl; reserve the spent peels. Cut the remaining tangerines into wedges with their peels intact, and set aside. Add the brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and cayenne to the tangerine juice and whisk until the sugar dissolves.
- Step 3
Generously season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. Tuck the wingtips behind the body. Stuff the tangerine peels and 6 ginger slices into the cavity, then tie the legs together using kitchen twine. Place in a large ovenproof skillet, and scatter the tangerine wedges and remaining 2 slices ginger around the chicken.
- Step 4
Slowly pour the juice mixture all over the chicken, then slide the skillet into the oven. Roast for 30 minutes.
- Step 5
Using a large spoon or baster, quickly and carefully coat the chicken with the pan sauce. Continue roasting, basting every 10 minutes, until the chicken is browned and cooked through, 20 to 30 minutes longer. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the breast should register 155 degrees and, in the leg, 170 degrees. The chicken will continue to cook while it rests.
- Step 6
Transfer the chicken to a cutting board and let rest for about 5 minutes. If the pan sauce isn’t already syrupy, bring it to a boil over medium-high heat on the stovetop. Be sure to wear oven mitts or use a kitchen towel to hold the skillet (the handle is hot). Cook, stirring occasionally, until the bubbles grow larger and paler brown, and the sauce is the consistency of syrup, about 5 minutes. Discard the ginger.
- Step 7
Serve the chicken whole or carved with the glaze poured all over the meat. Arrange the tangerine wedges from the pan around the bird. You can eat them, if you’d like.
Private Notes
Comments
We just finished having this for dinner and I made it as written except for the whole chicken. I used skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs and it was delicious. I used Clementines for the fruit. It was easy to baste the chicken as all I did was flip it over in the sauce as it cooked. I also made the stir-fried brussel sprouts to go with it. Both were really good and easy to make. This will absolutely be in the rotation from now on.
Navel oranges won't sub for tangerines: use clementines/mandarins instead. You need an orange variety with thin skin (peelable easily with fingers, without cutting with knife first) and little bitter white pith. (Thin-skinned varieties are ideal for homemade marmalade.) If you use navels, you'll have to use only the zest instead of the entire skin, or the dish will be quite bitter. For the recipe, I'd use minced ginger instead: it complements orange perfectly and is too good to discard.
Made this with chicken thighs and clementines. Cooked at 400 for 40 minutes and basted with sauce every 10. It was amazing. Unfortunately, everyone else thought so too and I had no leftovers! Will make double next time.
Great recipe, received rave reviews at a dinner party. I salted + pepper-ed the chicken for a few hours in fridge to dry. I made a whole chicken plus tender cutlets and thighs in a sheet pan, which was a little messy compared to a cast iron with higher lip. Would have marinated the pieces in hindsight for a bit. Whole chicken turned out better in my opinion. Would 100% make again.
Made it a few times, used bone in chicken thighs, and once turkey thighs. Delicious! Used ancho powder in place of cayenne once, prefer the ancho and will stick with that going forward, I guess it is not as sharp as the cayenne? And has a nice warm background heat. The roasted tangerine segments are the best, don't skip them if possible. I cut the segments in half into bite sized pieces, and added as many as I could fit into the pan as we wanted one with each bite. Easy to prepare, and delicious
A friend just made this for dinner. It was delicious. The orange flavor was prominent but it wasn’t sweet. The orange peels were tender and not bitter.