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    Updated: Apr 5, 2022 by Kris Jarrett

    Fake It, Don’t Bake It: Stress Free Holiday Hosting with Dressed Up Rotisserie Chicken!

    If you hate spending time in the kitchen cooking for the holidays but still want a nice meal, you’ll love today’s post! I’m joining five we-don’t-love-to-spend-endless-hours-in-the-kitchen blogging friends to take some of the stress out of holiday hosting by sharing ideas for making store-bought food look homemade and beautiful! Whether you want to cut down on your time in the kitchen by sneaking in a store bought side or dessert along with the rest of your homemade goodies or go for easy all the way, there’ll be lots of food and table decorating ideas you’ll want to steal.

    I decided to try my hand at doing a store-bought main course by dressing up a rotisserie chicken so that it knocks the socks off of your grandma’s fancy turkey! A rotisserie chicken is a great way to go if it’s just three or four of you eating Thanksgiving dinner together or if you’re hosting a large group and cooking a turkey but worried whether you’ll have enough to go around. A recent cover of Martha Stewart Living showing a beautiful turkey platter was my inspiration for giving it a go and I’m pretty excited (and surprised) about how well it turned out (post includes some affiliate links – disclosure statement available {here}):

    How to dress or doctor up store bought rotisserie chicken to look amazing! So easy for Thanksgiving or any dinner party!

    Here’s the play by play of how it went down. I started off with two rotisserie chickens that I snagged at Fresh Market:

    Fun post that shows how to doctor up a rotisserie chicken!

    You could definitely just use one chicken but I had a fairly large platter and wanted to have leftovers so I bought two and used about 1 ½ of them. My first step in dressing my chickens up was to neatly cut off the drumsticks/thighs from one of them. Then I sliced both chicken breasts, leaving the skin on (even if you take the skin off when you eat chicken, it looks much prettier arranged with it on!). Then I arranged the meat on my platter like this:

    How to arrange cut rotisserie chicken on a platter - the first step in creating a show stopping arrangement!

    To embellish my platter I used a pomegranate (cut in half), a blood orange (also cut in half), fresh rosemary, and fresh cranberries (all grabbed on the same trip to Fresh Market):

    Pomegranates, blood oranges, cranberries, and fresh rosemary are used to dress up a rotisserie chicken. See more in the post!

    I put the two pomegranate halves in place opposite each other near the ends of the platter and then added one blood orange half in the middle and another in an open spot near the rim. Then I filled in bare spots with sprigs of the fresh rosemary and finally added the cranberries to any little “holes” that were left. I should have taken another in-progress photo but it went together so fast – total prep time beginning with the carving wasn’t any more than 20 minutes.  I’m definitely no food stylist but once this baby was all decked out, it was hard to believe that it had such humble beginnings 🙂

    Such a clever way to dress up a rotisserie chicken so that it looks like a homemade feast! All of the details of how to doctor it up are included in the post!

    Did you catch a little peek of my table in the background? I’ll share a few pics of that too! I went super simple with it – for the centerpiece I simply added some fresh flowers in my favorite hurricane vases (found {here} – mine are the medium size) that I use time and time again:

    Simple dining room table setting for Thanksgiving with fresh flowers for a centerpiece and faux kale tucked into napkins

    For my place settings, I used wood chargers (mine are no longer available but {these} look similar, faux marble plates and salad plates, and {these beautiful napkins} with silver napkin rings and faux kale stems tucked in:

    Faux kale step tucked into a napkin ring - a simple, perfect placesetting for fall or Thanksgiving!

    The table runner is one that I made – you can read more about how I made it {here} or find a similar runner without the fringe that’s available to buy {here}. The rest of my dining room sources are linked in my Source List at the end of the post!

    Great ideas for making store bought food look homemade for thanksgiving and simple tablescape ideas too!

    A simple fall centerpiece of fresh flowers plus ideas for making Thanksgiving dinner easy!

    I hope you all enjoyed checking out my doctored up rotisserie chicken and my tablescape. I’m all about simplifying this year and hopefully didn’t go too far on the simple side for you!

    LOVE this idea for a simple Thanksgiving dinner using store bought rotisserie chicken! And the dining room is pretty too! :)

    Are you ready for more ideas for making your holiday meal a whole lot simpler? Bree at ZDesign at Home has some GORGEOUS ideas for quickly and easily dressing up store-bought cakes – here’s just a little sneak peek:

    How to dress up a store bought cake - beautiful!! By Bree of Z Design at Home

    Everything Bree shares always blows me away! Head on over and check her post out {here} so that you have a beautiful but simple holiday dessert idea in your back pocket! Bree will direct you to the next person to visit at the end of her post but here’s the whole list so you can be sure you don’t miss anyone:

    ZDesign at Home (Bree)

    Thistlewood Farms (KariAnne)

    Sunny Side Up (Erin)

    Kelley Nan (Kelley)

    The Lettered Cottage (Layla)

    For all of my “usuals”, thanks so much for stopping by – I always love having you here! And for those of you who are new to Driven by Decor, if you want to follow along you can subscribe to get new posts by email 1-2 times/week {here} – it’d be great to see you around the blog again!

    Driven by Decor Source List

    Paint color & Drapes: A slightly tweaked version of Sherwin-Williams Keystone Gray (exact formula at the end of {this post}) | Drapes were custom made years ago from a fabric that has since been discontinued
    Furniture, Lighting, & Art: Table – Drexel Heritage (no longer sold) | upholstered end chairs – no longer sold ({this chair} is similar) | side chairs – HomeGoods ({these chairs} are similar) | chandelier (similar) | art pieces flanking china cabinet – no longer sold
    Table Decor: Striped table runner – made with {this fabric} (DIY tutorial {here}) – {this runner} is similar but without the fringe| Marble dinner & salad plates – Oneida brand | glass goblets – no longer available | wood chargers – {these} are very similar | napkins with bold stripe | glass hurricane vases (they’re my fave!!)
    Plate wall plates: A combination of {these} and {these}
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    Categories: Dining Rooms

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Scarlett says

      November 20, 2017 at 10:18 am

      Hi Kris, the link for the platter used for the roasted chicken isn’t working. Thanks. Scarlett

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        November 20, 2017 at 10:22 am

        Sorry about that Scarlett – I just fixed it (and actually saw it’s now on big sale!). Thanks for letting me know!

        Reply
    2. Linda Manuel says

      November 20, 2017 at 9:34 pm

      As always, anything you do is elegant and classy! Thank you so much for sharing this idea for rotisserie chicken – yummy!!

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        November 20, 2017 at 10:50 pm

        Thank you Linda! I’m so glad that you enjoyed it!!

        Reply
    3. Lis says

      November 20, 2017 at 10:05 pm

      Loved this Post!!! xo

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        November 20, 2017 at 10:51 pm

        I’m so glad! Thanks for stopping by!!

        Reply
    4. Erin says

      November 21, 2017 at 12:51 am

      Kris I am seriously in AWE of the way this turned out! Oh my word! It’s the most beautiful chicken presentation I’ve ever seen! Your talent blows me away and this blog hop was so genuine and FUN. Just like you. 🙂 Hope you have the best Thanksgiving with your sweet family! Love you! xo

      Reply
    5. Susie says

      November 21, 2017 at 2:55 pm

      This is the most beautiful chicken dish!! And very simple and doable,
      Thank you! Happy Thanksgiving!

      Reply
    6. Tana - Your Marketing BFF says

      November 24, 2017 at 8:14 am

      Genius! I’ll have to do this for a party with friends at my house…looks like you slaved over it! Perfect…

      Reply
    7. Karen B. says

      November 25, 2017 at 10:40 am

      Kris,
      What a great idea. I had seen that platter layout on instagram and thought it looked so pretty. I can tell you, after roasting 2 turkey breasts, I believe 2 good roasted chickens (store bought/ready to eat) would have been just as good.
      The table looks wonderful and your flower arrangements are beyond beautiful.
      xo,
      Karen

      Reply
    8. Dorelle says

      November 26, 2017 at 10:27 pm

      Probably a dumb question but did you reheat the chickens at home and is there a problem with them drying out ? Many thanks

      Reply
      • Kris Jarrett says

        December 12, 2017 at 10:04 pm

        Dorelle, That’s not a dumb question at all! They’re going to look their best if you use them the same day. If you’re getting them several hours ahead of time, I’d just keep them warm in your oven until it’s time for you to cut them up for dinner!

        Reply
    9. Anonymous says

      November 25, 2018 at 6:09 pm

      Great job on the chicken…really looks impressive!

      Reply

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