Eight ingredients, plus pantry staples. That’s all it takes to make an entire meal from scratch. Add in a good bottle of wine for less than $20, and you've got a feast for family or friends.
A good roast chicken recipe is an essential element in every home cook’s arsenal. If you want to switch up from the butter-under-the-skin, rosemary-and-thyme routine (which we’re not knocking), try this punchy and impressive spatchcocked chicken coated with honey and harissa. Served with chickpeas, it comes to the dinner table in an hour, and it works with an array of wines—from Riesling to our pick, a juicy Rioja crianza.
The core of this recipe is harissa, a spicy paste made from chiles and roasted red peppers; a popular condiment in North Africa, it’s used in salads, marinades, roasted vegetables, tagines and more. It can be pretty potent, though the spice level varies by brand, with mild and hot versions available. Compared to other chile pastes, harissa is more fragrant and floral with its typical mix of coriander and cumin, making it a great companion to honey for a sweet-and-spicy combo. (If you can’t take the heat, don’t worry, we’ve got a different spatchcocked chicken recipe for you.)
Whenever I make chicken, I like to cook a vegetable underneath it—whether that be carrots, cabbage, potatoes or eggplants—to soak up the drippings. Just can’t let that goodness go to waste! For this recipe, chickpeas do the trick, crisping up and getting more flavorful.
Spatchcocking may seem daunting—just the thought of cutting through bone used to make me clench my jaw—but it’s relatively easy to do using a pair of kitchen scissors to cut out the backbone. Spatchcocking decreases the cooking time of a chicken by increasing the surface area—an excellent cheat code for a cozy, comforting weeknight meal that isn’t time-consuming. Just make sure that the chicken is resting as flat on the pan as it possibly can.
The chicken is roasted in two stages: Without the harissa sauce and with. Why? Both harissa and honey are sugary and will burn the skin well before the chicken cooks. Wait until the skin is getting crispy, then apply the sauce to create a glaze. (Plus, the chickpeas don’t need long to cook themselves, so the chicken only needs to go in and out of the oven once.) But, since the chicken is first going “bare,” it’s important to make sure that both sides of the bird are well seasoned with salt before putting it in the oven.
While everything gets to know each other in the oven, it’s time to put a bow on top of it all: a salted yogurt sauce. Adding a dash of salt to yogurt emphasizes its sweetness and creaminess, then adding a bit of lemon juice boosts its acidity, creating a refreshing sauce to provide relief from the spicy harissa. Before serving, just drizzle the yogurt sauce and any pan drippings over the carved chicken and roasted chickpeas, which can be accompanied by a bed of white rice or flatbreads (or both!). The chicken (deboned), chickpeas and sauce can also be wrapped up in flatbreads for something like a shawarma wrap, a perfect use for any leftovers.
With such a spicy dish, you might jump to pair it with a sweeter wine such as an off-dry Riesling. That’s a fantastic option, but a juicy, medium-bodied red with light tannins can easily handle a dish like this. For a pairing, look across the Mediterranean to the wines of Iberia; many table wines from the Douro in Portugal would be excellent (and affordable) options, but in my tastings, I found that a Rioja crianza was a stellar match. A crianza bottling spends less time aging in oak than a Rioja reserva and is generally more fruit-forward and accessible, with fewer tannins from barrel aging.
While the CVNE Rioja Cune Crianza 2021 (88 points, $15) has the structure and “chewy” tannins to stand up to a roast, this Tempranillo is still lively with dark-red fruit flavors and savory notes of smoked paprika and fresh herbs that complement the spices in the harissa.
Honey Harissa Roasted Chicken with Chickpeas and Salted Yogurt
Pair with a medium-bodied, fruit-forward red with savory flavors such as a Rioja from Spain; the CVNE Rioja Cune Crianza 2021 (88, $15) is a good example.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Total time: 1 hour (including resting)
Approximate food costs: $30
Ingredients
- 1 four-pound chicken; let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes
- 1/4 cup olive oil, plus one tablespoon
- 1 tablespoon, plus 2 teaspoons of salt
- Two 15.5-ounce cans of chickpeas
- 4 tablespoons harissa
- 3 tablespoon honey
- 5 cloves of garlic, finely minced
- 1/4 cup virgin olive oil, plus one tablespoon
- Juice of one small lemon
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 450℉. Remove any innards from the chicken and pat the bird dry thoroughly with paper towels. Place on a cutting board, breast-side down, with the legs pointing toward you. With a sturdy pair of kitchen shears, cut along both sides of the backbone, then discard or save the backbone for stocks, gravies, etc. Flip the chicken breast-side up, spreading it so that it lies flat. With the heel of your hand, press hard between the breasts to crack the sternum and further flatten the chicken.
2. Once the chicken is prepped, slather one tablespoon of olive oil on the skin of the chicken, with either a brush or your hands. Make sure the top and bottom are entirely covered thinly; use slightly more olive oil if needed to cover the whole bird. Then take one tablespoon of salt and sprinkle it all over the chicken, again using a touch more if needed for full coverage.
3. Grease a large rimmed baking sheet and set the chicken on the baking sheet, breast-side up. Place the chicken in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.
4. While the chicken is baking, strain, rinse and dry your chickpeas (either resting in the strainer or with paper towels). Set aside. To a medium mixing bowl, add the 1/4 cup olive oil, harissa, honey, minced garlic and 1 teaspoon of salt, stirring to combine.
5. After 20 minutes is up, take the chicken out of the oven. Brush the harissa mixture all over the chicken, lifting gently to get any skin on the underside. Once done, toss the chickpeas in the remaining harissa mixture until fully coated, then add the chickpeas in an even layer on the baking sheet with the chicken. Place in the oven and roast for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, until the chickpeas and chicken skin have deepened to a brick-red color and the thickest part of the chicken thigh reads 165°F using a meat thermometer.
6. Take the chicken and chickpeas out of the oven and let rest for five minutes. While waiting, in a small bowl, stir together the lemon juice, yogurt and 1 teaspoon of salt. Carve up the chicken, drizzle the salted yogurt and any juices left in the bottom of the baking sheet over the pieces and the chickpeas and serve with fresh rice or flatbreads. Serves 4.
