A beautiful tray bake of roast chicken with pumpkin, sage leaves and red onion. This satisfying cosy meal is easy to prepare, healthy and delicious! A family friendly dinner that also happens to be very allergy friendly (free from gluten, dairy, nuts and soy).
Why you will love this roast chicken with pumpkin, sage and onion
Easy one tray cooking. A gourmet and satisfying dinner with minimal washing up. Everything cooks together in one large roasting tray. Bonus, there’s no need to marinate or pre-brown any of the ingredients. Chop, drizzle and bake.
Budget friendly chicken dinner option. This recipe can be made using either a small whole chicken or the equivalent weight in chicken pieces like marylands or thigh. Buying a whole chicken or chicken pieces is typically cheaper than buying cuts like breast or tenderloin. Plus, cooking the chicken with the bone in adds so much more natural flavour and you’ll get the best pan juices.
Healthy roast dinner. Using white meat like chicken, together with vegetables, spices and herbs makes this a healthier roast option that also provides a variety of plant foods alongside your protein. Bump it up with greens on the side.
Allergy friendly recipe. This recipe is free from gluten, dairy, soy, sesame, peanuts and tree nuts.
Ingredients needed for a healthy roast chicken dinner
- Whole chicken or chicken pieces. Use bone-in, skin-on chicken to make this recipe to ensure a tender, juicy chicken with plenty of flavoursome pan juices for serving. Option one is to use a whole chicken, and flatten (butterfly) the chicken or cut it into pieces. Option two is to use chicken pieces like thighs or marylands.
- Pumpkin. Jap, Kent or Butternut pumpkin varieties will all work in this recipe.
- Red onion. The sweet flavour of red onion complements this dish really well.
- Sage. It’s possible to use fresh or dried sage leaves in this recipe.
- Garlic. In this recipe the garlic cloves are roasted whole. This means you’ll have juicy, sweet, aromatic parcels of roasted garlic to squeeze out over your roast dinner, it’s so good.
- Balsamic vinegar. This is used to add a little zest to the olive oil marinade that’s rubbed onto the chicken and veggies before baking.
- Honey. Honey works beautifully with the balsamic vinegar and the sage to add flavour to the chicken, and it will also help to brown up and crisp the chicken skin.
- Extra virgin olive oil. A nutritious oil with a great flavour, extra virgin olive oil can be used for cooking and for dressing. It’s used to coat the chicken and veggies.
- Salt and pepper. A generous sprinkle of salt and pepper for seasoning is a must for a delicious roast dinner.
See the recipe card for ingredient quantities.
I recommend serving this chicken dinner with steamed green vegetables and you can also add rice, quinoa or mashed potato.
How to prepare a roast chicken with pumpkin and sage
Preheat your oven and prepare a large roasting tray or dish. You’ll need a tray with raised edges to hold in the plentiful pan juices. When preparing the tray, either lightly rub with olive oil, or line with sturdy baking paper.
Prepare the ingredients: whisk together the oil, balsamic and honey; chop the onion and pumpkin, break up the head of garlic. If you need to flatten or joint the chicken, do this now too.
Place the chicken, vegetables and garlic in the tray and drizzle over the oil mixture. Toss to combine. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Finally sprinkle over the dried sage, or lightly torn fresh sage leaves. Massage in the salt, pepper and sage.
Pop it all into the oven to bake for approximately 60 minutes or until the chicken skin is crisp and golden brown.
When serving, don’t forget the roasted garlic cloves or those delicious pan juices which have formed. Serve up a portion of chicken and vegetables, squeeze out some garlic and ladle over the pan juices.
Recipe variations
- Pumpkin pairs so beautifully with the sage and onion in this dish, however if you don’t have pumpkin don’t despair! You can substitute in sweet potato or even a mixture of potatoes and carrots would work well.
- You can use red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar instead of balsamic vinegar.
- Brown onion can be used instead of red onion.
How to store leftover roast chicken
This meal will keep for around 3 days in the fridge. Keep it in an airtight container and make sure to refrigerate soon after cooking.
You could also freeze leftovers although the pumpkin may not retain the exact same texture; it will likely be a bit more mushy on defrosting. As this recipe contains quite a large volume of pan juices it should actually freeze quite well and could be warmed up again in the microwave or gently in the oven.
Let me know if you make this hearty, healthy and tasty roast chicken dinner. The combination of pumpkin, sage, garlic and onion is just SO good! I’d love to know how yours turned out so leave me a comment below.
More delicious dinner inspiration:
Creamy Coconut Ginger Pumpkin Soup
Lemon, Chilli & Garlic Roast Chicken
Slow Cooker Soy Braised Chicken Thighs
Roast Chicken with Pumpkin, Sage and Red Onion
Ingredients
- 1.2-1.5 kg bone-in, skin-on chicken
- 700 grams pumpkin or butternut squash (a large wedge or a very little whole butternut squash)
- 1 red onion
- 1 head garlic
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp honey
- 15 grams fresh sage or 3 tablespoons dried sage
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your oven and prepare a large roasting tray or dish. You’ll need a tray with raised edges to hold in the plentiful pan juices. When preparing the tray, either lightly rub with olive oil, or line with sturdy baking paper.
- In a mug or small bowl whisk together the extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey. Season with a little salt and pepper.
- Peel and chop the onions thickly. Wash the pumpkin and cut into large chunks. Break the head of garlic into cloves, but do not peel.
- Place the chicken pieces, pumpkin, onion and garlic into the roasting tray. Pour the oil mixture all over and use your hands to rub the oil over everything, then spread the ingredients out evenly over the tray.
- Season generously with salt and pepper, then add the sage. For fresh sage, remove the thick stems from the sage. Roughly tear the sage leaves and add to the tray. For dried sage, simply sprinkle it in. Briefly massage the salt, pepper and sage into the ingredients.
- Place in the oven and roast for approximately 60 minutes or until the chicken skin is turning crisp and golden brown, the vegetables are soft and the whole dish smells heavenly.
- Serve immediately, piping hot, or divide up into containers and store in the fridge.
- When serving, don’t forget the roasted garlic cloves or those delicious pan juices which have formed. Serve up a portion of chicken and vegetables, squeeze out some garlic and ladle over the pan juices.
Notes
- Pumpkin pairs so beautifully with the sage and onion in this dish, however if you don’t have pumpkin don’t despair! You can substitute in sweet potato or even a mixture of potatoes and carrots would work well.
- You can use red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar instead of balsamic vinegar.
- Brown onion can be used instead of red onion.
Nutrition
Baked at 350 degrees or 375 degrees? (No mention of oven temperature.)
not a clue. can not find any instruction for oven temp. Just guess.
375 Fahrenheit
Very tasty and easy recipe!!!
Thank you so much Micki!
I have a pumpkin to use up and this recipe looks great!
Is it possible to freeze the leftovers? If yes, then would you say it’s possible to freeze all the components together so you’d have a complete meal for future reference?
Yes, you could definitely freeze the leftovers of this 🙂 The pumpkin is likely to be a bit more soft/soggy when you defrost it, but otherwise no issues and I don’t really mind soft pumpkin anyway!