Giada's 4-Ingredient Lemon Chicken Tastes Like a Vacation—And It's So Easy

Giada De Laurentiis’ Amalfi Lemon Chicken is transporting. It makes me think of the IMAX Soarin' ride at Disney's California Adventure, where orange-scented mist sprays into your face, conjuring the feeling of flying over citrus groves. I'm not recommending spraying lemon juice into your eyes, but sometimes you just gotta get away.

The recipe is easy enough for a school night, and you deserve roasted chicken that's this tender in less than an hour, with herby, crispy skin that melts in your mouth. (Did anyone bring stuff for a negroni to go with? Asking for a friend.)

How To Make Giada's Lemon Chicken

The ingredients are chill: three big lemons, four tablespoons of EVOO, a tablespoon of fresh thyme and two tablespoons of rosemary, salt, and a whole chicken. Easy breezy! That’s except if you're me, and you read the instruction "back bone and breast bone removed" and immediately go into a tailspin, wipe Giadzy.com from your search history, and throw your phone into the ocean.

Removing the backbone and breastbone is technically butterflying, or spatchcocking, to use a more current term. It might sound like some kind of duel at the Renaissance faire, but this technique for flattening a whole bird helps it cook more evenly and provides more surface area for seasoning.

Still, I thought, “Lol! No way am I doing that.” I tried to cheat with a pre-spatchcocked chicken from the store, but I couldn’t find one. So I grabbed a whole bird, secretly wishing I could just leave the plastic wrapper on in the oven.

Once I got home, I had to face my destiny and do whatever it took to this chicken. You guys, I watched this video tutorial one time, and I spatchcocked the chicken myself. It was surprisingly easy to cut out the backbone using my semi-dull kitchen shears and to remove the breastbone with my similarly unkempt paring knife.

Any butcher in the meat department could also do it, but it seemed like one of those worthy life skills—like fixing a flat tire, amassing Monopoly hotels on Boardwalk, and playing "Wonderwall" on acoustic guitar at parties. So I took Giada's cue. If I can do it, so can you. If it sounds like too much, you can make this recipe with chicken thighs instead—they'll cook faster, too.

After patting the chicken dry with a paper towel, zest and slice your lemons, drizzle half the oil into an oven-safe dish, and line up the lemons in the dish to hold the chicken. Then, toss your lemon zest with your herbs and 2 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and rub the underside of your chicken with a third of the mixture. Place your chicken in the roasting dish, and rub the rest of the seasoning over and under the skin. Drizzle the remaining oil over your bird. Roast the thing at 400°F for 40 minutes or until the internal temp reaches 160°F.

The chicken came out so moist and fragrant. I shredded the meat and some of the skin to throw into salads and rice bowls throughout the week. Even days-old leftovers were absolutely succulent. If this is Amalfi, I’m feeling like a local already.

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