Cuban Roasted Cornish Hen recipe (2024)

Why should you make this cornish hen recipe?

Having lived in the Caribbean for a number of years, I knew I needed to try this Roasted Cornish Hen recipe as soon as I saw it in my friend Eva’s cookbook, Adventures in Chicken (affiliate link). And, let me tell you, this easy straightforward recipe did not disappoint. There is so much to love about it, but here are a few that comes to mind right off the bat:

• A Creative and impresive chicken dish: It is visually impressive and perfectly portioned worthy enough as the main course of a holiday dinner (or any other special occasion or dinner party) or as a humble Sunday supper when you want to treat your family.
• Only 15 minutes of hands-on time: While it takes about 2 hours for the cornish hens to bake, the actual preparation time is only about 15 minutes, which makes it ideal when you have a million other things you need to worry about when making dinner.
• Roasting is the best way to cook cornish hens: You can cook these special breeds of chickens in other ways but I find that roasting is the way to go. Thinking that you might have new to cooking Cornish game hens, I thought it would be great to share some of those questions and cover them in the recipe below.
• A great alternative to turkey during the holidays: While turkey is traditional, if you are serving a smaller crowd, this slow-roasted cornish hen recipe is ideal and a great alternative to turkey.

Table of Contents show

What is a Cornish Game Hen?

Cornish Game Hens, also referred Indian Game, is a special breed of chicken from Cornwall, England (source). Most popular in Europe, the French call it poussin. Here in America, in addition to Cornish hens, people refer to them as Rock Hens, little birds, or even Mini chickens.

A true cornish hen is a 3 to 4-week-old chicken that weighs around 18-32 ounces. As a breed, they are known to have more fat than most chickens, which is why they are so meaty, tender, and flavorful when cooked.

How to prepare these small birds for roasting?

Before I talk about how to marinade and then bake the Cornish hens, I wanted to talk about how to prepare them. Whether I am cooking a regular whole chicken or cornish hens, I truss my chicken as I find that doing so helps with getting an evenly roasted cornish hen. If you are not familiar with the term “trussing” allow me to explain:

Trussing is a technique that helps poultry keep their shape and prevents certain parts of the chicken from burning during the cooking or baking process. Most people use kitchen twine to truss a chicken, but this video shows how to truss a Cornish hen uses nothing but the Cornish hen itself. I am sharing it here as it is such an easy technique that requires no additional equipment and is super easy to apply.

With this being said, this is an optional step. If you are short on time, you can simply tie the legs with butcher’s twine and call it a day.

Ingredients:

The ingredient list is inspired by Cuban cuisine, but you can adjust it with whatever you have on hand. If you follow in Eva’s footsteps, gather limes (to squeeze them), olive oil, cloves of garlic, fresh oregano leaves, onion, water, and salt and pepper.

When shopping for cornish game hens at the grocery store, look for birds that are about 1 to 1 1/4 pounds. I find that smaller birds are ideal, especially if you want to serve one per person.

Ingredient Substitutions & Variations:

• Lemon vs Lime: You can use an equal amount of lemon juice (and lemon wedges or lemon slices) instead of limes.
• Fresh herbs: While fresh oregano is delicious in this recipe, you can play with other fresh herbs like Italian parsley, thyme sprigs, and fresh rosemary sprigs.
• Extra liquid: This recipe uses a cup of water as an additional liquid to use during the roasting process. If you have it, you can substitute it with chicken broth.

How To Cook This Recipe?

The roasted cornish hen recipe has 2 folds:

Make the Cornish Hen Marinade:

1. Make the marinade: Inspired from the Cuban cuisine, this easy-to-make Cornish game hen marinade has just a few ingredients. To make it, simply whisk together olive oil, garlic cloves, fresh oregano leaves, freshly squeezed limejuice, ground cumin, and kosher salt and black pepper in a small bowl.

2. Marinade the cornish chickens: Once the marinade is ready, divide it into 2 large food storage bags (I used 1-gallon size plastic Ziploc bag) and transfer hens into the bags (2 hens per bag). Make sure that the marinade is well distributed (and going into the cavity of each hen.) Get the air out of each bag as much as possible, seal and let it marinade for 4 hours, or preferably, overnight.

How To Roast Cornish Hens

To cook cornish hens in the oven:

1. Slice an onion: Place a sliced onion at the bottom of a large 6 3/4-quart dutch oven (affiliate link), an ovenproof 9X13 casserole dish or a shallow roasting pan. Pour in a cup of water (or chicken stock).
2. Arrange the cornish hens: Remove the hens and all the marinade from the bags. Transfer them to the Dutch oven (or casserole dish) with the breast meat side up, and make sure that they are snuggly. If preferred, add in a sliced lime.
3. Roast in the oven: To roast cornish hens, first start in a preheated 425-degree oven and bake them for 20 minutes. Then, bring down the temperature to 375 degrees and continue to cook for another 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches to 180 F degrees (80 C degrees).

What should I serve with this recipe?

Need inspiration for side dishes to serve with the roasted cornish hens? Be sure to check out my post on “What To Serve with Cornish Hens?” for a list of vegetable, grain, and salad recipes to choose from.

I served my hens over some Cuban black beans and rice mixed with fresh oregano leaves. However, you can also serve them with but bulgur pilaf, wild rice pilaf, black rice pilaf, seasoned quinoa, roasted potatoes, or any other one of my easy side dishes would be just as good. Just make sure to drizzle some of the juices left from baking over the dish before serving.

Believe me, even if you serve these with a simple salad, they will disappear in no time. I promise, just the smell in your kitchen as they roast will be enough to make your dinner guests hungry.

If I am serving this recipe for a special occasion, I make sure to open up a bottle of white wine as well. I usually go for a crisp Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio.

FAQs:

Expert Tips:

• Use fresh lime or lemon juice: While I know that it is an extra step to have to squeeze limes, I highly recommend using fresh lime (or lemon juice) for the most flavorful game birds.

• A word on what to use to bake cornish hens: When I first shared this roasted cornish hen recipe back in 2016, I did not have a large dutch oven so I used a casserole dish (like you see in the picture above). So, please be aware that you can use any ovenproof dish or roasting pan that would accomodate these small birds (and the marinade) to bake these in.
• Reduce the marinade to make a basting sauce: This is an extra step, but after the roasting is complete, you can strain the liquid using a fine-mesh strainer, discard the solids, and transfer the liquid into a small saucepan. Bring it to a boil over medium heat and let it simmer until it thickens for about 5-10 minutes. Use it as a basting sauce over the baked cornish hen right before serving.

Roasted Cornish Hen Recipe

Yields: 4 servings

Anelegant and perfectly-portioned Roasted Cornish Henrecipe you can make whenever you want to impress.This Cornish chicken dish ismade by marinating Cornishgame hens in a lime-juice-garlic-fresh oregano based marinade overnight and roasting them in the oven for over an hour.

Nutrition

Calories: 908kcal | Carbohydrates: 2g | Protein: 77g | Fat: 63g | Saturated Fat: 18g | Cholesterol: 455mg | Sodium: 860mg | Potassium: 1091mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 486IU | Vitamin C: 3mg | Calcium: 57mg | Iron: 4mg