The Moisture Mistake That's Keeping Your Roast Chicken From Getting Crispy

A whole roast chicken can be a show-stopping dish — provided that it's cooked correctly. Ideally, the bird will have succulent, juicy meat underneath a beautiful golden brown, crispy skin. But, there's one simple mistake that you could be making, thus jeopardizing the texture of your chicken skin.

In an exclusive interview with Tasting Table, The Cooking Foodie's David Davidov told us that forgetting to dry the skin of the chicken before roasting it could cause blotchy, soft spots. "If you want that perfectly crispy, golden skin on a roast chicken, you've gotta make sure the bird is bone-dry before it ever hits the oven," he says. He explains that failing to remove extra surface moisture from the bird will cause it to turn to steam in the oven — which is the last thing you want when you're trying to get crackly skin. 

He explains that there are many ways you can remove the moisture from the chicken prior to roasting. "My best practice is to pat the chicken dry very thoroughly with paper towels, including inside the cavity, and if time allows, let it sit uncovered in the fridge for several hours or overnight," he says. The fridge will offer a for your bird while still keeping it in a safe temperature range. Then, once your bird is dry, you can continue with your recipe as normal.

Besides roasting a wet chicken, there are many other pitfalls that you can make that will ruin the exterior of your bird. For one, you should never cook a chicken straight from the fridge — regardless of whether you dry it beforehand or not — because of the risk of uneven cooking. The will heat up faster than the main cavity of the bird, which can cause a raw center, overcooked edges, and potentially a skin that dries out rather than crisps up.

Another misstep that could be ruining your chicken skin is not cooking it at the right temperature. In a Tasting Table piece about mistakes to avoid when roasting chicken, professional chef Danielle Turner shared that chicken can either be roasted at a high heat for a short period of time or a low heat over a longer length of time, but suggests that if you're after a crispy skin, you should crank the heat up to around 425 degrees Fahrenheit. This will lock the moisture in the skin rather than drying it out over an extended cook time.