Can you microwave a whole chicken? How? Is that a thing? Some people do still microwave a whole chicken – it was one of the popular dishes promoted in the early days of microwave recipes – and the Robshaw family even cooked a whole chicken in the 1980s decade of TV programme “Back in Time for Dinner” where families lived through different decades, showing how home life, food and cooking changed. They cooked a 3½lb chicken in a roasting bag in 35 minutes, spreading Marmite on the chicken to give it the roasted look.

I’ll admit I’ve never wanted to microwave a whole chicken – nor roast one as it happens – even a whole chicken in a slow cooker hasn’t interested me because I am not a fan of fat, bones, skin, gristle, so have tended to buy my meat in sanitised little portions, preferably breast meat 🙂

But it can be done, so how do you microwave a whole chicken? Over 30 years ago I subscribed to a fortnightly magazine called Microwave Know How – each fortnight you’d buy a set of pages that fitted into a binder, at a cost of £1.35 each fortnight. Over the years it would grow into the ultimate “How To” guide for microwave cooking….. I kept that up for two years, but still have both my full binders and flick through occasionally for inspiration. The entire set of binders kept going….. I was already £70 down when I stopped 🙂 They can still be bought on ebay, for pennies compared to the original price!

• Microwave Know How on ebay

On page 2 of the Meat and Poultry pages, there it is, “How to microwave a whole chicken”, so I’ve added it below for you!

How Long to Microwave a Whole Chicken?

You will need to allow 10-12 minutes per 450 grams of chicken. A typical chicken might weigh 2.5Kg to 4Kg (2500 grams – 4000 grams). If you have a small chicken, weighing 2.5Kg, then you would need to microwave it for 55-65 minutes or so.

This first part is advising us that the chicken needs to be inside something, a container. Whether that’s a casserole dish with a lid, or a roasting bag. Notice it’s also saying the chicken needs to be raised from the bottom, so juices drain away as it cooks; you don’t want the chicken to be sitting in its own fat/water.

Wash the chicken or Not?.

It was far more common that people would wash chicken back then. These days we’re told not to wash the chicken. You can choose which you do in that case, if you’ve got a particular choice. The issue with washing a chicken is that “IF” it’s carrying bugs then they could be splattered around the sink/kitchen from the water being splashed as you’re washing it, cross-contaminating anything splatters land on.

The instructions in this microwave cookbook say you should wash the chicken; I personally wouldn’t bother, but it’s your choice.

Notice in the next piece how you have to mix melted butter and a browning agent (soy, or gravy stock) together and then rub/brush that onto the skin of the chicken – this is because a microwave oven doesn’t brown a chicken, so you need to introduce the colour by colour washing it before cooking. This bit is all about the colour, not about taste.

So, what’s next? You’ve got the chicken, painted it brown, put it inside a lidded dish/roasting bag, BREAST SIDE DOWN, on a saucer or (microwave safe) roasting rack …. and into the microwave oven it goes.

It then needs to be cooked for the time appropriate for its weight, which you know is not going to be under an hour. You will be turning it half way through the cooking time, so make a note of how long that is.

1. Microwave the whole chicken on FULL power for just 3 minutes
2. Reduce the microwave down to HALF power for half the total cooking time.
3. Turn the chicken over, so it’s BREAST SIDE UP
4. Microwave for the remainder of the cooking time, again at HALF power
5. Let the chicken stand 5-10 minutes before serving, it’ll continue cooking through during this time.

Great, so what does that look like? Below is the photo from the book again, just so you know. It’s cooked through, it’s brown as you ‘painted’ it.

And there you have it – a whole chicken cooked just in a microwave oven. Wholly safe and edible.

The skin won’t be crispy, not everybody’s a fan of chicken skin though.

Does Microwave Chicken Taste Good?

There are enough people out there who have been microwaving their chickens for many decades – they are still doing it because it works. It’s chicken, it’ll taste of chicken. You might not fancy it cooked this way, but when it comes to taste there’s not going to be too much of a difference between microwave chicken and other chicken… unless you like crispy skin as you won’t get that.