I heard someone recently stress about cooking a whole chicken one night for dinner.  Then I saw someone on Facebook say the same thing – stressing because they were going to roast a whole chicken.  And, in a conversation, someone else mentioned that they don’t do anything with chicken other than boneless/skinless, because doing the whole thing just is too stressful.

These conversations all happened within a week or so of each other.  They intrigued me only because roasting a whole chicken is my “I don’t want to put effort into dinner so I’m going to roast a whole chicken” fallback.

So, I set about writing a post on how to roast a whole chicken (you can find that post here), and I started on the first step – trussing it.  I stared at my camera and my string and my naked bird, and it occurred to me that it would be incredibly complicated and problematic to explain how to truss it with pictures.

So, I made you a vlog.  Here is a video tutorial on how to truss a whole chicken.  I just used standard kitchen string for trussing.

Now — why is trussing important?  The main reason you truss a chicken is to make it cook evenly and thereby ensure a juicy breast.  If the chicken is not trussed, the hot oven air circulates into the cavity of the bird and will overcook and dry out the breast before the legs and thighs are done.

If you do not want to truss the chicken, you can put lemon and onion inside the cavity, which will provide some moisture for the breast.  But I recommend just trussing your chicken – it tastes better.  Note: if you want to stuff something into the cavity, I suggest you do it prior to trussing.

Hallee

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