There are a couple of benefits to spatcocked chicken. First off, you’re able to get more seasoning on the chicken meat, and it cooks faster/more consistently. Also, when placed on a pellet smoker, there is a larger surface area exposed for better smoke pentration. This spatchcocked chicken was placed on a bed of fresh Rosemary sprigs before being roasted in the pellet smoker.
Tap/Click to watch the recipe or scroll below for the steps: Video – Recteq.com
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Step 1: The first step is to dry the outside of the chicken with paper towels, this will make it safe to work with the chicken (no e-coli splashing around). Then safely dispose of the paper towel.
Step 2: For a spatchcock chicken as a starting point, its a good idea to score the skin on either side of the spine.
Step 3: Then lift the chicken up and use your knife to cut down one side of the spine from one end of the chicken all the way to the other.
Step 4: For the next stage, its safer to use poultry shears than a knife to cut the bones on the other side of the spine.
Step 5: With a few snips of the poultry shears to cut though skin and connective tissue you’ll be able to remove the spine/backbone of the chicken.
Step 6: Make a small cut on the inside of the breastplate, flip the chicken over inside down, and then press on the back to flatten it out.
Step 7: Keeping food safety in mind, grab some olive oil and rub both the inside and the outside of the flattened spatchcocked chicken.
Step 8: The spatchcocked chicken was then first seasoned with the Recteq Four Letter Rub which contains Table Salt, White Sugar, Granulated Garlic, Butter Powder, Onion Powder, Pepper, and Apple Cider Vinegar Powder.
Step 9: The second seasoning that was used was the Recteq Freakin Greek Rub which contains Salt, Pepper, Garlic, Oregano, Coriander, Cardamom, Marjoram, Thyme, and Nutmeg.
Step 10: When applying the seasoning to a spatchcock chicken, you’ll want to apply a light dusting on both sides. No need to go too heavy, this is not a brisket, with chicken it only needs a light bit of seasoning for the flavors to come through.
Step 11: Some sprigs of fresh Rosemary were broken up on some cooking mesh which will help to release their natural oils to flavor the chicken.
Step 12: The seasoned spatchcocked chicken then went on top of the broken Rosemary sprigs ready for the pellet smoker.
Step 13: With the pellet smoker preheated to 325 degrees the chicken went onto the grates with a meat probe inserted to monitor its internal temperature.
Step 14: After the breast meat hit 165 degrees and the thigh was closer to 180 degrees after around 80 minutes, the spatchcocked chicken was done.
Step 15: Leave the chicken to rest for 15 minutes and dig in. That’s it! A nice simple recipe to get some delicious herb flavors and a little smoke into a spatchcocked chicken. Delicious!
Hi, I’m Chris Scott. I started PelHeat.com back in 2007 and I have a background in pellet manufacturing. PelHeat.com is an educational resource on BBQ pellets, pellet grills & smokers. Check out our Pellet Grill & Smoker Database.
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