Name: Skillet Roasted Mediterranean Chicken
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 65 min
Ingredients: 3.5 to 4 pounds chicken (bone in breasts, legs, thighs, wings (assorted to your liking)); 0.5 tablespoon salt (use enough to generously coat your chicken!); 2 teaspoons black pepper; 4 cloves garlic (smashed and sliced); 3 large springs fresh rosemary; 1 large handful of fresh sage; 4 to 5 large lemons (juiced (reserve one for garnish)); 1/2 cup white wine; 1 large bunch fresh parsley (chopped for garnish)

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This is a classic Italian recipe for Mediterranean style skillet-roasted chicken made on the stovetop using fresh garlic cloves, freshly juiced lemons, fresh herbs, and white wine. It is the absolute epitome of Italian cooking, which uses simple, unfussy ingredients to yield truly outstanding flavor.

The chicken is tender and flavorful, and I promise you will love it!

top view of Italian skillet roasted chicken with lemon and wine

Ingredients

top view of italian skillet chicken on wooden tray — Ingredients for skillet Mediterranean chicken: chicken, salt, pepper, lemons, garlic, herbs, white wine.

Whole chicken, cut up or whatever pieces you’d like to use (~3.5 to 4 pounds total)
Fresh herbs (use dried in a pinch): rosemary, sage, and parsley
Garlic cloves (4 to 5 total)
Salt
Pepper
Lemons (4 to 5 total)
White wine
Olive oil (optional)

The combination of lemon, herbs, wine, and garlic here with chicken is hard to beat in my opinion!

I added just a drizzle of olive oil at the end – it’s completely optional – this chicken recipe doesn’t require any oil and you won’t miss it.

Overview

Although this chicken dish isn’t necessarily a fast dish (it takes about 50 minutes to cook), I like it ease of making because although it does cook relatively slowly, so you must tend to the stove, you can definitely multitask nearby as the chicken cooks because of the more gentle heat. And so you can make side dishes, clean up, etc

To start, nestle the chicken pieces, garlic and herbs into a 10 inch pan. The chicken should not overlap but it’s okay if it fits snugly.

Cook the chicken gently over the next 50 minutes or so – I used mostly medium heat but turned it up now and then to burn off juices.
The chicken should be turned gently every 5 minutes or so, allowing some of the natural fats and juices to come through.
It’s very important to keep the chicken uncovered if you’re cooking a chicken sold in the US – chances are that the chicken is injected with salt water to keep it juicy and so if you cover it, the tendency is for the chicken to release all of its juices, resulting in a dry chicken.

close up view of chicken cooking on stovetop in black skillet

After gently heating for about 15 minutes, you will add half of the white wine, followed by the other half when the first half of the wine cooks off. You may need to raise the heat to cook off the wine.
This will be repeated with the lemon juice. Again, if juices begin the build up, turn up the heat, because we don’t want the chicken to have too much liquid at the bottom.