Jazz up that rotisserie chicken!

By Helen Klein

Sometimes the easiest thing to do for dinner on a weeknight is pick up a ready-to-eat repast.

Ready-prepared rotisserie chicken from the appetizing department stands out — it’s quick to set on the table, but it’s not fast food.

That said, you can augment it easily, turning a quick main course into a full meal — with about 15 minutes of prep time.

The results are well worth the extra effort. The meat, slathered with a coating of olive oil, reheats to tender succulence sitting on a bed of roasting vegetables sparked with herbal accents.

Stock — including the juices scraped from the rotisserie chicken container — helps cook the veggies (which get a head start in the microwave), concentrating the flavor and keeping the veggies and the chicken moist.

With a combination of starchy and non-starchy vegetables — which can be mixed and matched to accommodate the bounty of your produce drawer and to bring in a variety of taste, texture and nutrients — it’s truly a full meal in a single pan that feels home-cooked.

It also brings home one of life’s little secrets: pitch the packaging, and only the cook needs to know exactly how easy it was to set dinner on the table.

Rotisserie Plus

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 rotisserie chicken

4 large red potatoes, cut into 1” chunks

1/4 lb. baby carrots, cut in half

1 stalk celery, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch slices

1 turnip, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks

1/3 large sweet onion, cut into large dice

2 cups chicken stock

3 bay leaves

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 1/2 tsp. paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Approximately 1–2 tsp. olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Put the chicken into a roasting pan that’s large enough to hold it and the vegetables comfortably.

Put the vegetables in a microwave-safe dish and cook, according to your microwave’s instructions, until tender when pierced with a fork.

Add the vegetables to the roasting pan, along with the stock, herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Sprinkle chicken and vegetables with paprika.

Brush the chicken with the oil.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil, and place in oven, cooking 30–40 minutes, turning front to back after the first 20 minutes and adding liquid if necessary, till chicken is heated through and the vegetables are tender.