For The Ultimate Roast Chicken, Cook It In A Pizza Oven

You likely know that using a pizza oven is one of the best ways to make homemade pizza. But, did you know that you can use this special cooking appliance to cook more than pizza? A wood-fired pizza oven can cook everything from slow-cooked, smoked, and seared meats and vegetables to breads and hot desserts. In fact, you can make the ultimate roast chicken this way.

You can prep your chicken for roasting the same way you would for a conventional oven. You want to cook the chicken between 400 and 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Some say the ideal temperature for roasting chicken is at 450 degrees, which slightly reduces the cooking time. Regardless, you need to roast until the internal temperature reaches at least 165 degrees. You'll want to put the bird in an oven-safe roasting pan, such as a Dutch oven, breast meat facing the embers, and rotate it after about 20-30 minutes. Take a peek at the chicken when you rotate it and if the skin is already crispy enough, put a lid on the roasting pan.

When the roasted chicken comes out of the pizza oven, it will have a different taste than if you had made it in your conventional oven. The reason is because the smoke from the burning wood adds flavor – a similar process that occurs when cooking over hot coals.

One tricky thing about wood-fired pizza ovens is that they need to come up to a super hot temperature first to be able to stay hot long enough to roast the chicken with the embers. Preheat your pizza oven to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which could take about an hour. Then, let the flames burn down to between 2 and 4 inches high, and allow the heat to drop to roasting temp, pushing the wood, which has turned to coals by this point, to one side of the oven. The low fire will help with browning and searing your chicken, and you can maintain the heat by adding small bits of wood.

Another hot tip for making the ultimate roast chicken in a pizza oven is to spatchcock the bird. This step works particularly well if your oven opening is too narrow for your whole chicken to fit comfortably inside because it makes the bird lay flat. Additionally, the spatchcock technique cooks in record time and delivers an even sear.