Can I safely roast a chicken for 4 to 5 hours on a low heat?

Warning: Although I've cooked the following low-temperature chicken two or three times without a problem, I'm no longer convinced that it is safe (see this question). Nevertheless, it is advocated by a well-known and respected chef, so I won't delete this answer unless I'm able to establish to my own satisfaction that it is, in fact, unsafe.

According to this article, also backed up with data from the USDA, you can cook chicken as low as 140F (60C) as long as the internal temperature of the bird reaches and maintains that temperature for at least 35 minutes.

You may have to do a little calculation and experimentation to find a chicken weight and temperature that hits the five hour mark, but it seems that you can do it safely as long as you have,

• an oven that can maintain a temperature (I would invest in an oven thermometer to be sure, most oven dials are way out);
• a good digital probe. Probe the meat in several places to make sure of the temperature;

I would also leave the meat to rest a while so that cooking continues with the residual heat. I don't know how long you would need to feel safe, but I would probably wait 30 mins.

A tip taken from a Heston Blumenthal recipe is to brine the bird before hand. That way you will also kill a lot of bacteria from the skin.

Update:

Brining won't kill bacteria. The Blumenthal recipe involves dunking the chicken (see In Search of Perfection p.56) twice for thirty seconds in boiling water. I imagined, erroneously as it turns out, that this was a regular part of the brining process.

I would suggest not roasting a chicken at such a low heat for so long. Here is a response to a similar question on another cooking forum:

A few days ago I printed out a recipe from peacefulnightdove "BEST Slow-Roasted Chicken". It sounded wonderful but was to be roasted at 250 F (126 C) degrees for 5 hours. That sounded like a low temperature to me, so I emailed the County Nutritionist and Health Agent where I lived. Here is her reply: Good for you JoAnn to be suspicious! That is definitely outside the USDA guidelines, and yes bacteria may well be growing for quite a while in there. Poultry especially should not be done at less than 325 degrees. You could use the same spices and onions, increase the temp to 325 and decrease the time. Figure about 20 min per pound for the time. The safest way is to use a meat thermometer, final temp in the thigh should be 180 degrees. http://community.tasteofhome.com/forums/t/173823.aspx

I would also suggest using a crockpot.

Some of you folks are just worry warts. Cook's Country / Cook's Illustrated has a very similar recipe called "French Chicken In A Pot" (but one that is much easier to do than Gary's). Cooking at 225-250 F (~ 110-120C) for 4-5 hours makes this the most awesome chicken my family has ever had. The first time I did it, I did probe breast and thigh to be sure the internal temp made it. Subsequently, I've just trusted it. But in any event, if you get internal temps of 165 (75 or so C), then the bacteria have to be dead (as someone else already mentioned above).

But you do not need to do the boil/dunk using the Cook's Country recipe. You go directly from brine, to pan browning, then to the oven in a dutch oven (with very tight-fitting lid) over the veggies. (I'll run over the process below briefly in its entirety.) Another difference from Gary's is that Cook's Country has you pan brown first, which avoids the problem of trying to brown a very "loose" already-cooked bird that's trying to fall apart on you.

Anyway, here's what I do, more or less following the Cook's Country recipe, but not in all regards because I learned it years ago and now just go from memory:

• Brine whole chicken ~ 12 hours. For my family of 6, I do one whole bird plus 4 thighs.
• Pat dry chicken
• Brown chicken all sides in hot Dutch oven on the stovetop, remove chicken to holding plate
• 1 cup coarse chopped onion, 1-2 stalks coarse chopped celery, a bay leaf, sprig of rosemary, and 6-10 whole garlic cloves. Saute these all in the Dutch oven in the chicken fat rendered from browning, maybe 7-10 minutes while stirring. You want to drive a lot of the moisture out of the onions and celery.
• Leave the veggies in the pan bottom and put the bird on top. Roast in tightly covered Dutch oven at 225-250F (110-120C), 4-6 hours depending on bird weight (I usually find a 6.5 lb / 3 kilo bird goes about 5 hours). My lid covers well but is very light so I put a couple of 1 kilo steel barbell weights on the lid to be sure it seats well.
• Remove bird and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.
• Discard bay leaf and rosemary, then salvage all other veggies with a slotted spoon. Puree these with a stick blender or what not. Take all the pan juices and de-grease, then mix the remainder with the pan juices and make the most amazing chicken gravy you've ever had in your life. Don't forget to put any bird juices from the resting plate into the gravy, too.

Anyway, have fun!

I think the better choice would be a crock pot. It's much safer to leave one running all day, than to leave your stove on all day.

I would agree and go with a crockpot (or slowcooker). This wikipedia article explains what it is but basically it is a covered electronic pot that allows you to turn it on high or low to cook anything for a longer amount of time. Some of them when the timers go switch automatically to a keep warm setting so if you timer runs out at 5pm and you don't get home until 5:30pm then it won't go bad.

I have one recipe for a whole chicken that I absolutely love. Basically you rinse the chicken the fill it with 1 tablespoon of dice butter and one sliced apple. I use two sliced apples and any extra that doesn't fit in the chicken I put around it. Then you sprinkle the chicken with some seasoning salt. I use Mrs. Dash. I also add about 1/2 cup of water so I know that I will have enough liquid once it is done since I love making gravy (on mashed potatoes) with this recipe. Then you cook it on high for, I believe, 5 hours about. Anyway it is so good and moist and basically falls off the bone.

Good luck. :D

At the weekend we had exactly the same problem when we went out for the morning. We used the automatic oven function for the first time. If your oven has one it's great.

We put the chicken in the oven from the fridge, set the finish time to 14:30, and the cooking time to 2.5 hrs then left the fresh chicken in the oven. It had 2 hrs to come to room temperature (which is safe and I'd recommend). The oven came on at 12 and when we got in at 1330 there was still plenty of time to do the vegetables.

120º Celsius (248F) hotter than boiling water. USDA recommends 74ºC (165F) for chicken, so your chicken will be overcooked at 85ºC (185F). If you want to use an oven, try a thermometer to check the internal temperature of the chicken. Take carryover temperature into account (take it out of the oven at 70ºC).

Caramelization will take place at around 160ºC so your chicken will not brown. You might want to crank up your oven to 180ºC for browning.

Your best bet is to prepare the chicken in advance, refrigerate, and brown / heat it when you're going to eat it.

I've cooked this several times.

My blog

The internal temperature of poultry has to be 60C (140C) for at least 12 minutes in order to kill the pathogens present in the bird. The initial twice-dunking in boiling water, a thorough drying out plus using a probe to ensure a consistent temperature will ensure all the bugs have been killed off.

Finally the bird is fried in a red-hot pan all over to caramelise and a final purge.

I fed this to my 8-month pregnant wife and mother and baby are both still very happy one year on. It's a superb technique although as someone mentioned it's unnerving being able to take a chicken out bare-handed and hardly coloured!

If you have any doubts or fears, don't do it. But you'll be missing out.

It is the uncovered part I am worried about. It will make the bird dry.

It depends on the size of the bird usually how long you need to cook it. Here is a place you can determine how long to cook a bird on high heat. I have not been able to find one for slow roasting. http://www.helpwithcooking.com/cooking-poultry/roast-chicken.html

If you are worried about undercooking and don't have a meat thermometer you can poke the breast or thigh and if the juices run clear you should be safe.

I often bake chicken for 5-6 hours in the oven. I use legs that I've skinned and salted. I let the salt soak into the legs for 30 minutes and then I lightly brown the chicken in oil and transfer it into a casserole dish. I pour 200 degree broth (or sauce) that I've warmed in a saucepan over the chicken pieces and cover the casserole dish and put it into the oven to bake/braise for 5-6 hours at 225f degrees. The meat falls off the bone and can be used for tacos, or soup, or sandwiches, or whatever. No one's ever gotten sick from this method :)

Before I go to bed, I season meat, put it in a baking bag and in the oven on 100C. When I get up, after 8 hours or so, it is delicious! And I do this with ANY kind of meat. In southern Europe there is a special way to prepare lamb, weal and pork which includes very long baking on low temperatures. The meat prepared this way is so tender that it almost "melts" on your tongue. What I do is very close to this way of preparing meat. If you want it crisp, after baking take it out of the baking bag, put it in a baking pan and leave it in the oven for an extra 30 - 40 minutes. At this point, you can also add some chopped vegetables like potatoes or carrots.

Chris' link to Kenji Lopez-Alt's article (see Pasteurization Time section) is spot on: both temperature and time matter for food safety.

However, the method you described seems to be questionable for getting well-cooked legs and thighs. At that temperature, legs and thighs will usually be chewy and bloody, although I imagine the length of time might compensate for that a bit by breaking down the collagen in the muscle. But that brings us to the other drawback: roasting at low temperatures will take forever, not to mention you will get a rather mushy skin instead of a crispy one.

I've developed a recipe (My Quest for the Perfect Roast Chicken) to address the problem of perfectly cooking the breast and thigh to different temperatures, all while getting a crispy skin and not waiting for Godot. I roast for 30 minutes at 440°F (227°C) breast-side down, then flip breast-side up and roast at 380°F until the breast reaches 149°F, about 45 minutes for a 4-pound chicken. See the recipe for many more details.

I think the most conventional way for you to cook is to cook the chicken sous vide.

What is sous vide? It's a modern cooking technique where you place your food (in this instance your chicken and herbs) in a vacuum sealed bag, and place it in a pot of water which is kept at a precise temperature using a device such as the Anova.

Cooking in this manner not only let's you cook it for a long period of time, but also guarantees that your food will not be undercooked or overcooked. It will always come out perfect.

Google "sous vide recipes" for more...

Bon Appetit!

As long as the temp of the chicken is 165 bacteria are dead,The end.

I slow cook chicken all the time for 8 hours and have never had an issue. Use a meat thermometer and check.

It is absolutely 100% safe to cook a chicken at any temperature above 160 degrees F as long as you wait long enough for the internal temperature of the chicken to get to 160 degrees for at least a few minutes. At a lower temperature, this will obviously take longer, but it will happen eventually.

Given that the recipe is asserting that the internal temperature of the chicken should get to 185 degrees F, that's well above a safe internal temperature.

Brine that bird! If you put the bird in some heavily salted water for an half hour or more, you can kill the bacteria and make it easier to cook because it stays juicy longer at higher temps. Plus the skin will be crisp unlike cooking it in a crockpot.

I nearly died from food poisoning due to an undercooked chicken but fortunately got to hospital in time. After 24 hours of vomiting and other nasty fluid emissions, the nurse woke me and cheerily remarked: "Good morning. We thought we lost you last night."

Here's my recipe. Roast the chicken at 250 degrees centigrade and then roast it again. If it doesn't fall away from the bone give it to the cat.

Sous vide!!! Best solution ever for the busy person. Never undercooked and never undercooked, assuming proper temperatures are used for at least the minimum of time specified. Nice thing is you can cook longer and not ruin dinner.