The Sunday roast chicken dinner has a ‘special occasion’ vibe that no other ordinary meal has. Family around table, the roast, gravy, sides, everyone fighting over who gets the best bits. I love every part of it. It's the ultimate weekly family staple or for low key effortless entertaining, and perfect for smaller crowds at Christmas and Thanksgiving, though you can roast two chickens at the same time to serve more people.

If you’ve never taken on the Sunday roast before, it can look intimidating, but spoiler alert, it’s really easy. Just put the whole chicken in the oven with your gravy ingredients and let it do the work.

Here I’m showing you step by step on how to make the perfect Sunday roast chicken dinner with chicken gravy from scratch. I’ll also guide you on when to put on some other side dishes so that everything is ready all at once.

This kind of food lights me up, equally delicious and easy, using ingredients that work so well together. I love sharing recipes that teach you easy ways to build flavour from scratch.

What’s great about this recipe?

Well it’s super easy - On Sundays we don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen, so we need a Sunday roast recipe that’s simple prep and the oven does the work.

You can roast your chicken and your roast potatoes at the same cooking temperature. If you’re doing a Sunday roast, then roast potatoes are an obvious side dish. Some roast chicken recipes call for a lower cooking temp which makes it difficult to cook them at the same time. My roast potatoes recipe calls for roasting at 220c, but you can actually roast them at 200c along with the chicken, but just have them in the oven for a bit longer to properly crisp up.

You get the world's yummiest gravy - Not even exaggerating. You make a trivet (a layer that props up the chicken from the pan) from leek, dried mushrooms, bacon, garlic and sage leaves, which becomes the base for your homemade chicken gravy. The flavours intensify with adding the pan juices - no stock cubes! It’s so easy and ridiculously good.

Tips for cooking the perfect roast chicken and gravy

• Preparing your chicken: Patting the chicken dry first helps to remove excess moisture giving you crispier skin. Salt, pepper and a little olive oil is all you need. Season all over chicken. The salt helps to dry out the skin giving crispier skin. Adding a lemon in the chicken cavity gives a nice perfume to the chicken, adding to the flavour of the dish, but it’s not totally necessary.
• Trussing the chicken: Now, I don’t do it the traditional way, propping up the breast trussing the wings. I don’t find that they burn, so I just tie the legs together. We do this to give a more even cook over the whole chicken, preventing the legs from drying out while the chicken breast is cooking. You can skip this step, but you will notice the chicken breast being drier than if you trussed it. This is because you’re closing the cavity which prevents hot air from circulating in the cavity, drying out the chicken breast.
• When to put on your side dishes: You need to work backwards from when the chicken will be ready, and how long your side dish takes to prepare and cook. For roast potatoes, start parboiling them 30 minutes into the cook (when you remove the vegetables from the pan and start the gravy). For a simple vegetable side dish like this French pea dish, you want to be cooking this with around 20 minutes to go. For a simple salad that’s purely assembly, you can prep it earlier and have it in the fridge ready to go, or any time during the cooking process really.
• Making your chicken gravy from scratch: We’re making the base of the gravy with the trivet - bacon and vegetables that we put underneath the chicken. Gently fry together some butter in flour in a saucepan until the butter becomes slightly browned and nutty, then pull the vegetables out 30 minutes into the cook and simmer with some chicken stock gently slowly to let all the flavours infuse. Then strain out the vegetables and bacon. But it’s not finished yet, chicken gravy from pan juices make all the difference! Once your chicken is cooked, add the juices from the pan into the gravy and stir through. If you taste the gravy before adding the juices, and after, the difference is significant! Give it a final taste and season if needed.
• Equipment: Use any oven safe roasting tray. I used my trusty enamel plans, but whatever you use, make sure it has at least a little side height to keep in the juices that will come out.
• How long to roast the chicken: The exact cooking time will depend on the size of your chicken. A 2kg / 4.4 lb chicken will take 110 minutes to cook in the oven. A rule of thumb on how long to cook a roast chicken, you’ll want to cook it for 30 mins, plus 20 minutes for every 500g of chicken. If you’re worried about undercooking it, the best thing to do is get yourself a food thermometer and test the thickest part of the chicken, ensuring it’s 75 C / 165 F.

What to serve with roast chicken

If you’re like me, always chasing the perfect bite, these dishes pair perfectly with roast chicken and are a must try: roast potatoes or Truffle Potato Gratin and Petits Pois à la Française in the cooler months, or a simple rocket/arugula salad in the warmer months.