“Rotisserie” Oven Baked Chicken Legs

The lemon pepper rotisserie chicken from Wegmans is by far the best packaged rotisserie chicken I have ever had (sorry, Costco). So when I stumbled upon whole chicken legs in the grocery store (the only package of chicken left in the entire store, which I’m sure is common given our current coronavirus environment), I thought maybe I could recreate the best part of the Wegmans chicken – the legs. I don’t have a rotisserie in my oven, and I’m sure most of you don’t either, so the way I achieved the crispy skin and tender meat is by cooking slow and slow, basting in butter/chicken juice, and then baking at high heat to crisp the skin. Delicious!

For this recipe, it’s best if you cook the chicken in a covered casserole dish or Dutch Oven. But you can also make do with just covering your pan tightly with tin foil during the low and slow baking process. Just be care not to burn yourself when you pull back the foil to baste, which you will be doing a lot of!

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“Rotisserie” Oven Baked Chicken Legs

This recipe is inspired by my favorite Wegmans rotisserie chicken. The meat gets juicy and tender, and the skin gets crispy and flavorful!

Course: Main Course

Servings: 4 people

Ingredients

• 4 whole chicken legs
• 1 tbsp lemon pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp salt or more to taste
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter thinly sliced

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 300F.
• Place the chicken legs in a covered casserole dish or Dutch oven so they do not overlap.
• In a small bowl, combine the lemon pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt to create the spice mix.
• Sprinkle the spice mix over the chicken so it is covered evenly and use your fingers to press the spices into the skin.
• Place the thinly sliced butter pieces on the chicken so they are evenly dispersed
• Cover the chicken and bake for 30 minutes. Then baste the chicken, which means to use a spoon or baster to cover the chicken in its juices, and return to the oven for cook covered for another 30 minutes.
• The chicken will be very tender, but very pale. So remove the cover, baste the chicken again, and raise the oven temperature to 425F. Allow the chicken to sit in the oven uncovered while the temperature increases.
• When the temperature reaches 425F, cook the chicken for 20 more minutes uncovered, basting halfway through.
• Spoon some more juices on top and serve!