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Roast Chicken with Beans, Garlic and Apples

Crispy skinned chicken is roasted along with creamy cannellini beans and garlic cloves in apple cider till everything is an aromatic treasure! Pan seared apple slices are the perfect finish. Sunday dinner anyone!?
Course Main Course
Cuisine North American
Keyword apple cider, apples, cannellini beans, chicken, garlic
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken cut into 4 pieces, bone in, or 8 pieces if so desired, see Note
  • 4 Tbsp butter divided, plus more if needed
  • olive oil
  • sea salt
  • coarse ground pepper
  • 2 14 oz cans cannellini beans drained and rinsed, (398 ml each)
  • Fresh rosemary
  • 1 head of garlic divided into cloves, unpeeled
  • 1 cup apple cider
  • 2 to 3 firm apples like Honeycrisp or Gala

Instructions

Chicken

  1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
  2. Pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towel. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
  3. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil. Nestle the chicken pieces into the pan (work in batches if needed) skin side down. Once the skin is golden brown, about 3 minutes, turn the pieces over and brown the other side 2 minutes. Adjust the heat if the skin is scorching. Remove from the heat to a plate.
  4. Place the rinsed beans in a baking dish or large casserole and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Nestle the chicken pieces, skin side up over the beans in one layer. Drizzle any pan juices and juices that collected on the plate over everything.
  5. With the side of a knife blade, smash the garlic cloves to open them up, but leave the skins on. Scatter these around the chicken pieces
  6. Add 1 or 2 sprigs of rosemary, broken into smaller pieces around everything. Pour the cider around the beans. Dot the top of the chicken pieces with 1 tbsp of butter.

  7. Place on the middle rack in the oven and roast until the meat is 165F, about 40 to 45 minutes or so depending on your oven and the size of the chicken pieces. Check the breasts earlier and remove to a platter if finished. Cover these with foil. See Notes

Pan Seared Apples

  1. While the chicken and beans are roasting, prepare the apples
  2. Slice the apples into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. Leave the peels on.

  3. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Scatter the apple slices in the pan, as much in one layer as possible. Let them sit for one minute to take on colour. Start turning and brown on all sides. Once golden brown and seared in places (adjust heat if necessary) transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle with any remaining butter in the pan, as well as a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Place the chicken pieces on a platter and surround with apple slices, the garlic and some fresh rosemary for garnish

  2. Serve the beans and cider broth in a separate bowl. Garnish with rosemary if desired. The beans and broth can also be served around the chicken if you desire.

  3. See blog post for more details and suggestions.

Recipe Notes

If you don't want to cut up the chicken or can't have a butcher do it, feel free to replace with bone-in skin-on chicken pieces, between 6-8 pieces, depending on the size.
Depending on the size of the chicken this will feed 4 to 6 people. Extra large breasts can be cut in half. Dark meat has a better texture if cooked up to between 170-175F, so feel free to remove the white meat beforehand, and let the dark meat roast longer.

Serve crusty bread on the side for those who want to smoosh their garlic on bread which can also soak up the cider braised beans.