Sous Vide Spatchcock Chicken

A sous vide roasted spatchcock chicken, carved and served on a white platter with lemon slices and fresh parsley on top.

Sous Vide Spatchcock Chicken

Hands-down the best way to cook a whole chicken if you want tender, perfectly done meat! Spatchcocking the chicken makes it easier to handle for cooking, and maximizes crispy skin for serving.

Prep Time10

Cook Time5 15

Total Time5 25

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: French, Western

Keyword: roast chicken, sous vide, sous vide chicken, sous vide spatchcock chicken, steam oven chicken, steamed chicken

Servings:

Calories: 337kcal

Ingredients

3.3 lb whole chicken
3 Tbsp olive oil or softened butter
2 tsp kosher salt or flaky salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder optional

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Preheat and prep

Preheat steam oven to Steam or Sous Vide setting, 155°F/68°C (100% humidity). or preheat a sous vide immersion circulator in a water bath.
Using kitchen scissors, cut along each side of the chicken's backbone to remove it. Turn the chicken over and open it out, skin side up, then press down firmly on the breastbone with the heel of your hand to flatten the bird. Remove the neck and any loose skin from the chicken, then pat dry well with paper towels.
3.3 lb whole chicken

Season

Rub the chicken all over on both sides with the oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder. If you're doing steam oven sous vide, place the chicken, flattened out, into a stainless steel baking tray. If you're using a water bath, vacuum seal the chicken in a bag.
3 Tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp garlic powder

Cook

Place the chicken into the steam oven or water bath and cook for 5-7 hours. The range of time allows you to be flexible; it'll be done at 5 hours but will happily sit in the oven/water bath for up to 7 hours without the texture or taste being altered much.

Roast to finish

When the chicken is done cooking, you can either finish and serve immediately, or refrigerate asap to finish up and serve up to 2 days later.
To finish, preheat your oven to 450°F/230°C (no steam). If you have a fan-grill setting in your oven, use that. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the chicken, skin side up, on the lined sheet.
Cook until the skin is crispy and golden (and, if it was refrigerated before finishing, until the chicken is heated through). If you're using a grill/broiler element this will take as little as 8-10 minutes, with a conventional oven setting it'll be more like 15-20 minutes.

Rest and serve

Rest the chicken for 10-15 minutes in a warm place before carving and serving.

Notes

If the idea of removing bones from a whole chicken is too much for you, most butchers will happily prepare the bird for you. Some better supermarkets also sell unmarinated flattened chickens, ready to season and cook.
If you're pre-preparing the chicken to serve at a later time, immediately chill it after the sous vide step (I actually put it into the freezer for half an hour, then into the fridge, to get the temperature down quickly).
You can keep the sous vide cooked chicken in the fridge for up to 3 days before roasting and serving, or in the freezer for a couple of months. If you've frozen it, thaw overnight in the fridge before proceeding with the roasting step to finish.

Nutrition