This Greek Roasted Lemon Garlic Chicken is perfect for a weekend dinner and can be done with whole or half chicken, or smaller pieces of poultry. The Greek marinade works well with chicken breasts, thighs, wings and drumsticks as well. Whole30, paleo, low-carb and keto-friendly recipe.
Greek Roast Chicken With Garlic, Lemon & Herbs
For this recipe, I am using a Greek chicken marinade made with lots of garlic, lemon juice, herbs and lashings of olive oil is very versatile and can be used with any other meat, mushrooms or veggies. You can easily make a bigger batch and keep it in a jar in the fridge for a couple of weeks.
I will show you how to marinate and roast half a chicken but you can easily adapt this method and the marinade for a whole chicken. Adjust the cooking time to about 50-60 minutes instead of 40-45.
Alternatively, you can coat a bunch of chicken drumsticks or legs and bake those for about 30 minutes. Note that the lemon juice mellows out a lot during cooking, so the chicken won’t be sour even though the marinade is.
How To Make Roast Chicken With Green Marinade
First, we are going to make a roast chicken marinade! I love to cover the chicken in the marinade and pop it in a Ziploc bag for at least 30 minutes. If you can leave it in the fridge overnight, you’ll have an even tastier chicken; and, of course, this is a perfect way to do some meal prep and freeze the marinated chicken for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight and cook as per the recipe.
Herbs For Green Chicken
For herbs, I used mixed dried herbs but you can use dried oregano or thyme, or fresh herbs finely chopped up.
What To Serve With Greek Roast Chicken
For a side dish, I recommend my Beetroot & Olive Salad, Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Garlic (can be done at the same time) and/or this 5-Minute Zucchini & Mint Salad. For something more substantial and festive, try my Crispy Smashed Potatoes & Salsa Verde Peas.
More Chicken Recipes To Try
- Rotisserie Chicken Recipes & Tips For Using Up Leftovers
- Easy Chicken & Broccoli Stir-Fry (Low-Carb, Keto)
- Stuffed Chicken Kiev Patties (Low-Carb, Gluten-Free)
- Rotisserie Chicken Salad Recipe (Keto, Gluten-Free)
- Whole Roast Chicken With Inside Stuffing
- Georgian Roast Chicken With Creamy Garlic & Coriander Sauce.
Greek-style Roast Chicken With Garlic, Lemon & Herbs
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 2-3 1x
- Category: Main
- Method: Roast
- Cuisine: Greek
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
This Greek-style roasted lemon garlic chicken is perfect for a weekend dinner and can be done with whole or half chicken, or smaller pieces of poultry. Whole30 and keto-friendly.
Ingredients
- Half a chicken (if using whole, make a larger batch of the marinade or use 6-8 pieces of chicken)
- 5 cloves of garlic, smashed
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 2 teaspoons mixed herbs
- 1 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
- Generous pinch of pepper
Instructions
- Combine the garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, herbs and sea salt and pepper in a bowl. Place the chicken on a plate and coat with the marinade on both sides (make sure to brush the bits under the wing). Place the chicken in a Ziplock bag and pour in the remaining marinade. Mix it around in the bag, remove any excess air and zip it up. Leave in the fridge for 30 minutes minimum or for a few hours/overnight, ideally. Remove from the fridge for 15 minutes before cooking to bring to room temperature.
- To cook the chicken, preheat the oven to 200 C/ 400 F. Put a piece of parchment paper on a flat baking tray and place the chicken on top, skin side up. Scoop and spread the remaining marinade over the top. Place in the oven, middle shelf, and cook for 40-45 minutes (depending on the size of the chicken, slightly smaller birds should only need 40 minutes for half of it). If cooking a whole bird, keep it in for 50-60 minutes.
- Once the cooking time is up, remove from the oven and rest on a cutting board under some foil for about 5-10 minutes. Serve with a few slices of lemon as is or carve it into smaller pieces. I like to cut it into a drumstick, leg, wing, and then slice the breast into smaller pieces. This should feed 2-3 people, plus sides.
Keywords: Roast Chicken, Greek Marinade, Greek Recipes, Chicken, Whole Chicken
roast half chicken best test and your love thanks for sharing
Oh, yum! So much flavor. Putting it on the meal plan for this week.
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so simple, yet stellar results! Recipes like this are total life savers!
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This sounds great. I would love it with Greek salad!
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I absolutely love Greek seasoning and this looks divine! That chicken looks so perfectly cooked.
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I love that pretty half chicken! This is how my family loves chicken – crispy seasoned skin! I can’t wait to try the marinade!
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That coating is so impressive. Beautiful and SO yummy!! Thanks for this lovely recipe!
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Greek style is probably my favorite way to order chicken out, and now I can make it at home! Beautiful job, and so simple too.
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Thanks Alex!
The chicken looks so moist and delicious! Love how simple this recipe is. Saving it!
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Oh yum, I love a good roast chicken just loaded with herbs!
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I don’t eat much chicken anymore but something prepared like this is very tempting! Thank you for your tasty recipes as always Irena.
What are “mixed herbs“ specifically?
They will usually be something like dried rosemary, thyme, oregano etc.
Thanks for this recipe. I made it today for Easter, and my family loved it!
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An absolute winner!! My husband thinks he is the king of all Greek cooking… Not anymore! Thank you so much for sharing.
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Ha, glad you could show him who’s boss in the kitchen 😉
fantastic and delicious and easy!!
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Thanks, Susan.
So pleased I found this recipe…chicken stays so moist and the flavour is amazing..I never roast a chicken any other way now!
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Thanks Jackie! Irena 🙂
Hello,
Cooked this recipe. Super easy and so very delicious.
What herb mix do you use?
I have Mixed Herbs blend from a store. You can use Italian Mixed Herbs or any other mixed herbs.
I am making this recipe tonight, but I don’t know what “mixed herbs” are, especially as it relates to greek food. I can get as far as oregano.
I am also excited to try the vegetarian lasagna with cottage cheese that you just posted, something I have done before, but this recipe looks more interesting.
Dry mixed herbs will often have oregano, thyme etc. Dried thyme will work well here 🙂 Let me know how you go with the lasagna!
Mixed herbs thanks……no indication of which spices??
You can often get Mixed Herbs as a blend of various herbs. It depends on the brand but they often have similar herbs like thyme, parsley, oregano etc. If you look for any mixed herb blends that are either Mediterranean, Greek or Italian, you can’t go wrong. If you want to just do one herb, I’d go for dried oregano. If you want to mix your own own, I would recommend a mix of dried oregano, thyme and say parsley.