Herb Roasted Chicken and Gravy

Herb Roasted Chicken with Gravy is wonderful for a Sunday night dinner, or for a smaller Thanksgiving dinner.

You know how sometimes a recipe will tell you that you can use your choice of broth, stock, wine, or water for the liquid it needs? Prior to about two years ago, if a recipe gave me the option, chances are I would have chosen the water. Water is cheap and I wanted to spend the least amount possible on our groceries. And, yes…I know homemade stock is inexpensive to make too, but I didn’t know how to make a proper stock and whenever I did attempt it, it seemed like a pain.

That was until I started learning all kinds of cool things when it came to cooking. I started realizing that broths, or preferably stocks, gave recipes SO much more flavor than water. I just never really gave it much thought and I guess it wasn’t much of a priority to me. Once I figured it all out, I learned how to make my own stock and I started keeping cartons or cans of broth or stock in my pantry as backups to my homemade stock. I also found that LOTS of recipes called for it, so if I always had some on hand, I was set with several dinner ideas in a pinch.

When I buy cartons (or cans) of stock, I buy all different brands, but I recently learned of a new product: Knorr Homestyle Stock. It comes in this little tiny package, which had me wondering if if was really a good buy? But, I learned that each one of the little cartons inside the package (and there is 4 of them) makes 3 1/2 cups of stock. That’s 14 cups of stock for the whole package! So, yeah, a good deal, in my opinion.

On Sunday, I got working on my dinner. Everyone in the family asked what was for dinner and they were excited – give them meat with gravy and they are happy. I decided to make two chicken. It’s not that much more work and I wanted to make Chicken Noodle Soup on Monday, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of chicken.

The first step was to combine half of a tub of Knorr Homestyle Stock with the garlic and herbs. Since I was making two chickens, I used a full tub.

In a bowl, I combined the tub of Knorr Homestyle Stock with chopped garlic and dried rosemary. This smelled really good already!

I rubbed half of my mixture under the skin of each of my chickens.

Here they are all ready to go. See all the bumpiness under the chicken skin? That’s the piece of garlic which got all nicely roasted on the chicken. I love roasted garlic.

I baked the chickens at 375 degrees F until the meat thermometer reached 165 degrees F. Here they are just after I pulled them out of the oven – don’t they look good? I was very happy so far.

I moved the chicken to a platter and now got started on the gravy. I think I’ve gotten quite good at making gravy my way, but decided to follow the recipe to try something new. First, I combined water with flour in a small bowl.

Then, I put my roasting pan on my stove burners (something I don’t usually do, but hey, I’m up for an adventure). I stirred in the water/flour mixture and added a tub of the Knorr Homestyle Stock (would have been 1/2 of a tub if I did one chicken). Those white areas in the photo are where the heat from my burners are hitting the pan. Is this the way that most people do gravy? It’s very new to me.

I continued cooking the gravy and ended up with this, which was VERY flavorful. I was really happy with how it turned out.

Our dinner was fabulous! I served the Herb-Roasted Chicken and Gravy with Homemade Mashed Potatoes and Honey Glazed Carrots. The chicken was SO good (love that rosemary/garlic mixture) and the gravy was pretty much perfect. I also have to say that cooking a whole chicken is one of the easiest, but most satisfying dinners you can make on a Sunday. They take so little work, but they turn out so impressive — my kids think it’s like having a mini Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, and the Knorr Homestyle Stock – it was rich and full of flavor. And while that’s important to me, I am probably the most impressed about the value. I know I can buy this – skipping the store brand – and save money. I always like it when that can happen.

How about you – do you make your own stock? Or do you buy it from the store?

Here’s the completed recipe. You can also find it, complete with nutritional information, on Knorr’s website here: HERB-ROASTED CHICKEN & GRAVY

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Herb Roasted Chicken and Gravy

Ingredients

1 tub Knorr® Homestyle Stock – Chicken, divided
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh herbs(fresh thyme leaves, tarragon and/or rosemary)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3-1/2 to 4- lb. roasting chicken
1 cup water
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine 1/2 tub Knorr® Homestyle Stock – Chicken, herbs and garlic in small bowl. Rub mixture under chicken skin, then spread remaining on outside of chicken. Arrange chicken on rack in roasting pan. Roast 2 hours or until meat thermometer inserted in thickest part of thigh reaches 165°. Remove chicken from pan and keep warm.

To make gravy, combine water with flour in small bowl, then stir into pan over medium heat. Stir in remaining Stock, scraping up brown bits from bottom of pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until gravy is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Strain, if desired. Serve gravy with chicken.
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Here’s a slideshow with even more photos – it shows a lot more of my process of planning, shopping, and cooking of the #NewKnorrStock recipe: Herb-Roasted Chicken & Gravy – from shopping to finished plate.

This #NewKnorrStock project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for #collectivebias. All opinions & thoughts are, as always, 100% my own.