Whole Food Meals
Simple meals from real ingredients — air fryer whole chicken, baked salmon, whole roasted cauliflower, warm harvest quinoa bowl — for busy weeknights.
★ dinner
dinnerAir Fryer Whole Chicken
Air fryer whole chicken is juicy on the inside with with a delicious, crispy skin on the outside!
Luke BrownIngredients
- 1 Whole chicken
- Olive oil
- Dan-O’s Original Seasoning
- 2 quarts Water
- 1/3 cup Salt
- 1/2 cup Brown sugar
Instructions
- 1Mix together water, brown sugar, and salt. Submerge Chicken in brine mixture and let brine overnight. The brining step can be optional, but I think it helps make the chicken juicier.
- 2Take chicken out of brine and pat dry. Slather chicken with olive oil. Add Dan-O’s Original Seasoning to entire chicken and place chicken in the air fryer. Pin wings back on chicken with toothpicks. Tie the legs together or use a toothpick to pin them together.
- 3Cook chicken at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Flip chicken over and add more Dan-O’s Original Seasoning if needed. Cook an additional 25-30 minutes.
- 4Check internal temperature of chicken with a meat thermometer. Cook until it reaches 165 degrees.
- 5Once chicken is cooked let it rest for a few minutes before slicing or pulling the chicken.
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Open in Pepper →Real Ingredients, Cooked Simply, On The Table
When supper is a chicken, some olive oil, and salt, there's not much that can go wrong. Food like this cooks mostly on its own while you deal with homework and the mail, and it still tastes like somebody made it.
Cooks on Pepper reach for this collection on the nights they want something that feels clean and filling without a long ingredient list, and on Sundays when one big roast can stretch into lunches all week.
Every recipe here keeps things plain and whole: Air Fryer Whole Chicken and Instant Pot whole chicken, Best Easy Healthy Baked Salmon, Whole Roasted Cauliflower and Roasted Whole Butternut Squash, Creamy Roasted Vegetable Soup, Oven Grilled Whole Fish, Tuscan Shrimp with Whole Wheat Linguine, and bowls like the Warm Harvest Quinoa Bowl and Asian Sweet Potato Grain Bowl.
Quick Tips
- 1
Dry the chicken first
Pat the whole chicken dry with paper towels before oiling and seasoning it, so the skin crisps instead of steams. Ten minutes uncovered in the fridge helps even more.
- 2
Give vegetables room
Spread cauliflower or butternut squash in a single layer with about an inch between pieces, so they roast and brown at 400°F instead of turning soft.
- 3
Check salmon early
Start checking thin fillets at 10 minutes; pull the salmon when it flakes at the thickest part and still looks a little glossy inside.
- 4
Rest before carving
Let a whole chicken sit 10 to 15 minutes after cooking so the juices settle and don't run out onto the board.
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