Dutch Oven Chicken and Roots
A whole bird buried in vegetables and broth, cooked over coals until it falls apart.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 16 oz
- cal / oz
- 39
- protein
- 48 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 95 min
- total time
- 110 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Whole chicken | 1, about 4 lb | tie the legs so it holds shape |
|---|---|---|
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Turkey or chicken broth | 2 cups | boxed broth travels fine unopened |
| Baby red potatoes | 1 1/2 lb | halved |
| Carrots | 4 | cut into chunks |
| Celery stalks | 3 | cut into chunks |
| Onion | 1 | diced |
| Garlic cloves | 6 | peeled, left whole |
| Bay leaf | 1 | |
| Thyme or rosemary | a few sprigs | dried works, use 1 tsp |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Burn a fire down to coals well before you want to eat. You need a steady bed, not flames.
- Cut the potatoes in half, chunk the carrots and celery, dice the onion. Do this at home if you want a shorter camp evening.
- Wipe the oil around the inside of a 9 qt dutch oven and set the chicken breast up in the middle.
- Pack the vegetables and garlic around the bird, pour the broth over, and tuck in the bay leaf and herbs. Salt everything.
- Lid on. Set the oven on a ring of coals and shovel more coals on the lid, roughly twice as many on top as underneath. That gets you near 350 F.
- Cook 90 minutes without lifting the lid more than twice. Refresh the coals once around the halfway mark.
- Check the thigh with a thermometer. 165 F or it goes back on.
- Let it sit ten minutes, then pull the meat off with tongs and spoon it back into the broth and vegetables.
This is a coal-fired roast, and the coals are the whole skill. Bottom heat cooks the vegetables and boils the broth; top heat browns the bird. Weight the lid heavier than the base and you get an oven instead of a scorched pot. Lifting the lid to peek dumps that heat, so check twice and no more.
The broth is doing more than flavor. Two cups in a covered oven turns to steam, which keeps a lean bird from drying out over 90 minutes and cooks the potatoes without a second pot. Fresh herbs are worth carrying if you have a cooler anyway, but a teaspoon of dried thyme goes in the spice kit and does most of the same work.
Packing
Chicken stays in the cooler, frozen solid if you are driving in the day before. Vegetables can ride in a mesh bag outside the cooler. Broth box and dried herbs go in the food bin.
Variations
- Leftover meat and broth reheat the next morning with rice for a second dinner out of one cook.
- Swap the potatoes for parsnips or turnips in cold weather. They hold up longer in the cooler.
- No cooler? Use two 12 oz cans of chicken and cut the cook to 30 minutes, just long enough to soften the vegetables.
https://campfirefoodie.com/dutch-oven-chicken-recipe