Roast Chicken Tips & Recipes

Jennifer Aaronson, Editorial Director of Food and Entertaining for Martha Stewart Living, joins us for a stop along the Martha Stewart Living Blog Tour to give us helpful chicken roasting tricks and tips. Flip through the six scrumptious chickens, and don't forget to follow this week's tour: check out yesterday's post with winter gardening tips at The Stir and the final post on refinishing furniture at AOL DIY Life; and, as always, you can find more great entertaining and recipe ideas at MarthaStewart.com.

The new year is always a good time to start fresh, revisit the classics, and ramp up your basics. What does that mean in the kitchen? Roast chicken -- the go to for Sunday's family dinner (and Monday's sandwich and Tuesday's tacos...) as well as a no-fail dinner party favorite. We've put six new flavor-packed spins on the basic bird, perfecting technique along the way and defining The New Roast Chicken. Why reinvent the wheel every week? Put these 6 chickens in your back pocket and you'll have one tasty year.

Tips/tricks for great chicken:

1. Let raw chicken stand at (a cool) room temperature for at least one hour and up to two hours before roasting.

2. Dry skin really well before buttering or seasoning.

3. If stuffing under the skin, loosen the skin from the wider neck end- this way it is less likely that the skin will break and it will keep the smaller, pointed end of the breast covered to prevent it from drying out.

4. If you leave the raw chicken uncovered in the refrigerator overnight the skin will get nice and dry and result in extra crisp skin after roasting.

5. Buy a meat thermometer or make sure the one you have is calibrated (place in boiling water --at sea level it should read 212°).

6. Do not overcook- To check doneness insert thermometer into thigh- it should read 165° (also- juices will run clear after piercing meat and legs will wiggle easily).