A Bundt Pan Is Your Secret Weapon For The Crispiest Chicken Roast

Everyone wants a roasted chicken with crisp skin and tender, juicy meat. There are several ways to accomplish this: You can roast the chicken on a rack, you can grill it using an unusual holder (more on this later), or you can cook the chicken in an air fryer. But there is one kitchen utensil you probably have in the house that works every time. And you most likely never considered it.

Yes, a Bundt pan is your secret weapon for the crispiest chicken roast, according to Food & Wine. We can hear you saying, "What? How is this possible?" Bundt pans are used to make cakes, monkey bread, or pull-apart bread. How on earth can it be used to roast a chicken?"

The Bundt pan's unusual shape is key to the perfect roast chicken with crisp skin. The key to crisp skin, after all, is unobstructed air flow, per Smart Chicken. And that's where the Bundt pan's center column comes into play.

Inspiration for this unlikely cooking tool may have come from another way to cook chicken: a beer can on a grill. If you've never heard of beer can chicken, the concept is simple. You open a can of beer, pour some of the beer out, and stick a chicken onto it. The chicken's legs and the can form a kind of three-legged stool that holds the bird upright.

The beer flavors the chicken as it cooks, and hot air circulates freely around the chicken, producing a fabulously crispy skin. So you just do the same thing with the Bundt pan (minus the beer). The chicken sits on the center tube of the pan and roasts to perfection. And as a bonus, you can put veggies in the pan itself, making this an easy and clever one-pan dinner!

To cook a chicken on a Bundt pan in the oven, you'll just need to choose the oven temperature and time. A recipe from Food & Wine suggests roasting at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour. You'll need to put the pan on a cookie sheet with raised sides, or else chicken juices will spill all over your oven. Otherwise, you can cover the hole in the column with foil, per Food Network.

It's best to use a sturdy Bundt pan for this cooking method, although any should work. You can adjust any beer-can chicken recipe to this method. Just find one you like, season your chicken, add veggies if you want, balance the chicken on the bundt pan, and roast away. Some of the chicken fat and juices will drip onto the veggies as they cook, flavoring them beautifully (per Tastemade). You can see exactly how to do this in a segment on the Rachael Ray show.

Luckily, there's no dearth of recipes to try. Chipotle-rubbed beer can chicken is spicy-sweet with chiles, cinnamon, and lime juice. Chef David Burke's Sam can chicken is another choice, made with a bird that is marinated in garlic, ketchup, mustard, and honey. Then when the chicken is done, set it on a platter and cover it with foil for about 10 minutes. Slice and enjoy. And remember — leftover roasted chicken makes a fabulous curried chicken salad or roast chicken sandwich.