Roast Chicken with Cilantro and Lime

Roast Chicken is a great meal for anyone on the South Beach Diet, or any kind of low glycemic or low carb eating plan. I have a George Foreman Rotisserie, which I use to cook my chicken, but you can easily cook it in the oven if you don't have a rotisserie. This looked so delicious that I started cutting it up before I realized I hadn't taken a photo, so the photo may not do it justice!

This marinade produced delicious, tender, juicy chicken with just a slight overtone of lime and cilantro. You could pour the marinade over and marinate it all day while you are at work, then roast the chicken when you get home for an easy dinner. You could use the cooked chicken for chicken tacos in low carb flour tortillas. Leftover chicken would also be great on a salad for lunch the next day. Check back tomorrow to see what I made with my leftover chicken.

I used dried cilantro in this recipe, which I think is fine in something like this where it is mixed in a marinade. I got the dried cilantro and the Chipotle chile powder from Penzeys, my favorite place to buy spices. If you have access to fresh cilantro, by all means use it. I buy bags of limes at Costco and when they are starting to go bad I squeeze the juice out with a great little hand tool I got from my sister-in-law Lisa, and freeze the juice for recipes like this.

ROAST CHICKEN WITH CILANTRO AND LIME

1 whole chicken, 4-5 pounds
Marinade:
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T minced garlic
2 tsp. onion powder or 1 T grated onion
2 T dried cilantro
1/2 tsp. ground Chipotle chile powder

Remove giblets from inside chicken and discard. Rinse chicken inside and out with warm water. Tie chicken with kitchen string if you will be cooking it on the rotisserie. Mix marinade ingredients. Put chicken in large ziploc bag and pour marinade over chicken. Marinate 6-8 hours in refrigerator.

If cooking in oven, preheat oven to 450. Remove chicken from marinade and rinse with warm water. (Optional, but I like to rinse off the cilantro so it doesn't burn.) Roast or rotisserie cook about 15-20 minutes per pound. Use instant read meat thermometer to tell when chicken is done. Minimum temperature should be 185.

(Edit 1-8-07 Most experts now think a temperature of 165-170 is more than enough for chicken. I've become convinced that a lower temperature keeps the breast more juicy.)

Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

By itself, this recipe is a great dish for the South Beach Diet, phase one. This would be great with Cucumbers Caesar, Arugula and Sweet Mini-Pepper Salad, Cauliflower Fried in Butter, or Roasted Broccoli with Garlic, all are suitable for any phase.

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