Make sure your chicken is at room temperature. This means it needs to be left out on the counter for at least an hour before you are going to start cooking.

Preheat the oven to 450 and set an oven rack in the middle of the oven.

Open the chicken’s packaging and pull any little baggies out of the chicken’s chest cavity. These are some of the organs of the chicken. You can use them for making gravy, but for the purposes of your first chicken, just toss them.

Cut an onion in half and stuff both halves into the chest cavity. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and dried herbs inside as well.

Place the chicken breast-side up on a roasting rack in a roasting pan.

Sprinkle the outside of the chicken with salt, pepper, and herbs. Drizzle some olive oil on top and then rub the oil and spices into the skin a little bit (like for 5 seconds)

Flip the chicken over, so it is now breast-side down, and repeat step 6.

Put the chicken in the oven and set your timer for 10 minutes.

When timer goes off, turn the oven down to 350. Set your timer again for the amount of time it will need to get half-way through your cooking time. What does that mean?? With this approach, you need to allow 20 minutes per pound. So if it is a three-pound chicken, then that is one hour of cooking time. So, in this case, you would set your timer for 20 more minutes.

When the timer goes off again, pull the chicken out of the oven, close the oven door to keep the heat in, and flip the chicken so it is now breast-side up. The easiest way to flip a chicken is, with oven mitts on, to reach two hefty forks inside the cavity, one on each end, and flip. Set your timer for the second half of the cooking time.

When the timer goes off this time, check to see if the chicken is done. I like to wiggle the drum sticks to see if they are loose and make a small cut into the thigh to make sure the juices run clear (no blood or fogginess).

Take the chicken out of the oven and allow it to rest for 5-10 minutes before serving. The internal temperature of the chicken actually continues to rise during this time, cooking it a little bit more.