It’s been WAY too long since I’ve posted a new Smoked Whole Chicken recipe. I love sharing new, tasty ways to cook a bird. This, my fowl friends, might be the tastiest yet.

Let me show you how to cook an extraordinary bird on your smoker!

Table of Contents

Prepare the Chicken

We are going to add multiple layers of flavors to this chicken from the stuffing inside the cavity and the herb butter under the skin.

Stuff the Inside of the Chicken

We are going to stuff the inside of the chicken with lemon, garlic, rosemary, thyme and parsley.

Cut the lemons into halves (or quarters), insert them first, and stuff the garlic and herbs around the lemons.

The aromatics will infuse the chicken with tons of flavor as they steam inside the bird on the smoker.

Rub Herb Butter Underneath the Chicken Skin

Prepare an herb butter by combining

3 tbls softened butter
1 tsp ground sage
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tsp fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp salt

NOT ONLY did we stuff herb happiness inside the bird, but we shoved it underneath the skin as well. Gently lift up the skin and rub most of the butter directly onto the breast meat.

Take a little of the butter and rub it on the surface of the skin.

Yep. Buttery Herb Deliciousness. At this point the bird has been seasoned inside and out with Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme….Simon & Garfunkel would be proud of this chicken.

These chickens were left with no choice but to end up amazing. They were surrounded by it.

Do You Need to Brine the Chicken Before Smoking?

Since we are going to be smoking a whole bird at low temperatures we do not have to brine the bird to keep it moist. Between the skin, bones and aromatic stuffing there are plenty of barriers against the bird drying out.

For this recipe the only real reason to brine would be to add another layer of flavor. If you want to add the extra flavor layer then you could soak the chicken in a basic brine for a few hours or speed things up with this great chicken injection recipe.

Smoke the Chicken at 225F

Set your smoker to 225F and add some hickory and apple wood into the mix and your taste buds are delighted by the onslaught of flavor. Cook it just like any other 5lb chicken we’ve done before in our How to Smoke a Whole Chicken Recipe.

How Long Does it Take to Smoke a Whole Chicken at 225F?

It usually takes about four hours to smoke a five pound chicken at 225F.

But as I always say, it’s all about the internal temperature of the chicken, not the time on the pit. The perfect internal temperature for smoked chicken 165F in the breast and 175-185F at the leg. If they hit 165 in 2 hours or 8 hours, that’s just fine.