Alton Brown's Paper Bag Method For Seasoning Chicken

No one likes boring, bland chicken, but the actual process of seasoning a whole bird isn't too pleasant either. Raw poultry can be dangerous to handle, and rubbing in herbs and spices by hand is tedious and often messy. Rather than suffer through that ordeal again and again, try giving Alton Brown's clever paper bag method a shot.

In a guest appearance on the very first season of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Brown demonstrates how to make the entire seasoning process pretty painless. The TV chef grabs a raw whole chicken, a large paper bag, and a Ziploc bag with "seasoned flour," which he says contains a mix of "flour, herbs, salt and pepper, and stuff" (surely Brown's favorite smoked paprika is in there somewhere). He and DeGeneres dump the flour in the paper bag before placing the chicken inside. Brown closes it up, hands it to the host, and tells her to shake it. When he pulls the chicken back out to bake it, the bird has a nice, even coat of seasoned flour.

On Ellen, Alton Brown ditches the paper bag full of seasoned flour once it's time to roast the chicken in a clay pot. But you can actually roast the chicken while it's still in the bag. It'll take about an hour and a half in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Believe it or not, this is perfectly safe — the bag won't burn and the chicken will come out nice and juicy as the moisture will be trapped inside.

As for the mysterious "seasoning flour," while Brown doesn't have a recipe for the mix available online, popular herbs and spices include paprika, garlic powder, thyme, sage, rosemary, and cayenne, in addition to the traditional salt and pepper. Of course, you can always get more creative than that: There are tons of unconventional ingredients you can use for marinating, like harissa and yogurt, and you can even stuff the bird with a tangerine and slather it in tangerine-zested butter.