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Roast Duck Recipe

Ever wondered how to cook duck? It’s much simpler than most people think. This Roast Duck recipe has tender, juicy meat, crispy skin, and it’s glazed with a honey-balsamic glaze to give the duck a beautiful roasted look. Perfect holiday main dish recipe or something you can make any time for a special occasion.

It’s a great-looking dish – perfect for any special occasion, and with the holidays coming up, this roast duck recipe will look great on any Thanksgiving dinner menu, or as a Christmas and New Year’s Eve dinner idea. By the way, the honey-balsamic glaze in this recipe DOES NOT MAKE THE DUCK SWEET – I did not want a sweet duck. It only gives nice crispiness and a beautiful look to the duck skin. Your duck will have a very savory and juicy flavor from the garlic and lemon that you’ll stuff inside the duck cavity. SO GOOD!   Cooking this duck does take some time and effort, which makes it a perfect holiday main dish or a special occasion dinner. 

close-up of whole roast duck with honey-balsamic glaze

This recipe has very detailed instructions (with step-by-step photos) on how to prepare and cook the roast duck – which could be very helpful if you’ve never cooked duck before. The duck will be roasted in the oven at 350 F for a total of 3 hours, and in addition to the beautiful duck, you’ll end up with a lot of duck fat which I highly recommend you save and use for roasting vegetables, potatoes, and even cooking your breakfast eggs with it!

whole roast duck with honey-balsamic glaze

How to prepare a whole duck for roasting

Step-by-step photos and instructions start here (the complete recipe without photos is at the bottom of this post). I recommend that you read and look through these photos and then scroll down to the recipe box itself for the more condensed version of the recipe (without photos).

If using frozen duck, make sure it’s completely defrosted (defrosted in the refrigerator for a couple of days). Remove the giblets from inside the duck. Rinse the duck, inside and outside, with cold water. Pat dry with paper towels:

raw whole duck

Set the duck on the working surface. Score the duck’s skin on the breast side in a diamond pattern, making sure you only cut the skin, without reaching the meat. The 2 deep cuts to the right of the photos are the example of how NOT TO SCORE, but it’s still OK, as I did not cut through the meat but did reach the meat in those 2 cuts on the right:

scoring the duck's skin

The duck breast should be scored in a diamond pattern:

score the duck breast in a diamond pattern

This is what the duck should look like, breast side up, scored (see 2 deep scores on the right – try not to do that but it’s OK as long as you don’t cut into the meat itself):

score the duck skin in a diamond pattern

Poke the other fatty parts of the duck with the tip of the knife all over, to ensure fat release, especially in very fatty parts. You don’t need to poke the duck legs as the skin is pretty thin there (except for where the duck legs connect to the duck body).

poking the duck's skin with a knife

Season the duck very generously with salt both inside the cavity of the duck and outside on the skin, legs, and all over.

generously salt the duck

Put 5 chopped garlic cloves and lemon slices inside the duck cavity (these are just for flavor, not for eating – you will discard them after cooking).

adding lemon slices and minced garlic into the duck cavity

The duck will have flapping skin on both ends – fold that skin inwards, to hold the garlic and lemon inside.

folding the duck's flapping skin on both ends inwards, to hold the minced garlic and lemon slices inside the duck's cavity

Tie the duck legs with butcher’s twine or butcher’s string (or, in my case, I just used folded aluminum foil to tie up the duck legs, because I forgot to get butcher’s twine):

Tie the duck legs with aluminum foil

Place the bird breast side up on a large roasting pan with a rack (roasting pan should have a roasting rack to lift the duck from the bottom of the pan and allow the fat to drip below the duck).

duck placed on a large roasting pan

How to roast a duck in the oven

You will be roasting the duck for a total of 3 hours at 350 F. These 3 hours of roasting are divided into 4 distinctive time chunks (1-hour breast side up + 40 minutes breast side down + 40 minutes breast side up brushed with balsamic-lemon mixture + 40 minutes breast side up brushed with the honey-balsamic mixture).

  1. Roast the duck for 1 hour at 350 F, breast side up, then remove the duck from the oven, it should look like this after the first 1 hour of roasting:
roasted duck scored breast side up in a roasting pan
close-up of roasted duck scored breast side up in a roasting pan

2.  Then, flip the duck breast side down, and roast for 40 minutes at 350 F breast side down. The duck should look like this – its breast side down in this picture:

roasted duck with the breast side down in a large roasting pan

3.  In a small bowl, combine ½ cup of balsamic vinegar with the freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon. Set the duck breast side up again on the roasting rack in the roasting pan. Brush all of the duck with the balsamic mixture (especially the scored duck breast) and cook the duck breast side up for another 40 minutes at 350 F, brushing every 10 minutes with the mixture.

4.  Now, in a separate small bowl, combine ¼ cup honey and 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar lemon mixture that you will have leftover from the previous step. Brush the breast side of the duck with this honey-balsamic mixture, and roast the duck breast side up for another 40 minutes, brushing the duck breast side every 10 minutes with the honey-balsamic mixture. You can even carefully broil the duck for the last 10-15 minutes if you like (do it carefully, checking the duck regularly to make sure it doesn’t char too much).

The duck will really start to brown. In the end, the duck should be nicely browned with crispy skin like that (By now you would’ve cooked the duck for 3 hours at 350 F.):

close-up of roasted duck

Untie the legs:

Whole roasted duck with honey-balsamic glaze

If you want a really beautiful and festive presentation for your holiday duck, use my recipe for Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash glazed with Cinnamon & Maple Syrup, with Pecans & Cranberries.

You can garnish the duck and decorate the serving platter with these colorful veggies – they will have all the holiday colors and flavors and will look very pretty with duck:

Roast duck with honey-balsamic glaze
Roast duck with honey-balsamic glaze

Roast Duck Recipe

Recipe by Julia
Servings

6

servings
Prep time

20

minutes
Cooking time

3

hours 
Calories

2862

kcal
Total time

3

hours 

20

minutes

This Roast Duck recipe has tender, juicy meat, crispy skin, and it’s glazed with a honey-balsamic glaze to give it a beautiful roasted look.

Ingredients

  • Roast Duck
  • 6 lb whole Pekin duck

  • 1 lemon – small or medium, chopped

  • sale

  • 5 garlic cloves, chopped

  • Glaze
  • ½ cup balsamic vinegar

  • 1 lemon, freshly squeezed juice

  • ¼ cup honey

Directions

  • If you purchased frozen duck, make sure to defrost the frozen duck in the refrigerator for a couple of days. Once the duck is completely defrosted (in the refrigerator), take the duck out of the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to cooking to bring it more or less to room temperature.
  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. You will be roasting the duck for a total of 3 hours (3 hours will be divided into 4-time chunks where you will be flipping the duck, brushing it with glaze, etc. – see the instructions below).
  • Prepare the duck
  • Remove the giblets from inside the duck. Rinse the duck, inside and outside, with cold water. Pat dry with paper towels.
  • Set the duck on the working surface. Score the duck’s skin on the breast in a diamond pattern, making sure you only cut the skin, without reaching the meat. Poke the other fatty parts of the duck with the tip of the knife all over, to ensure fat release, especially in very fatty parts. You don’t need to poke the duck legs as the skin is pretty thin there (except for where the duck legs connect to the duck body). Season the duck very generously with salt both inside the cavity of the duck and outside on the skin, legs, and all over. Place the duck breast side up.
  • Put 5 chopped garlic cloves and lemon slices inside the duck cavity (these are just for flavor, not for eating – you will discard them after cooking). The duck will have flapping skin on both ends – fold that skin inwards, to hold the garlic and lemon inside. Tie up the duck legs with butcher’s twine.
  • Roast the duck for 3 hours
  • Place the bird breast side up on a large roasting pan with a rack (roasting pan should have a roasting rack to lift the duck from the bottom of the pan and allow the fat to drip below the duck). Roast the duck, breast side up, for 1 hour at 350 F.
  • After 1 hour of roasting, flip the duck on its breast and roast it breast side down (roast the other side) for 40 minutes, at 350 F.
  • Remove the roasting pan with the duck from the oven (you now have roasted the duck for 1 hour + 40 minutes), carefully remove the duck to a platter (making sure the lemons and garlic from the cavity do not fall out – keep the skin on both ends of the duck folded), and carefully pour off all the duck fat juices from the roasting pan into a large heat-proof bowl or container.
  • Flip the duck breast side up again on a rack in a roasting pan (the pan will have no fat juices now). In a small bowl, combine ½ cup of balsamic vinegar with the freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon. Brush all of the duck with the balsamic mixture (especially the scored duck breast) and cook the duck breast side up for another 40 minutes at 350 F, brushing every 10 minutes with the mixture.
  • Now, in a separate small bowl, combine ¼ cup honey and 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar lemon mixture that you will have leftover from the previous step. Brush the breast side of the duck with this honey-balsamic mixture, and roast for another 40 minutes, brushing the duck breast side every 10 minutes with the honey-balsamic mixture. You can even carefully broil the duck for the last 10-15 minutes if you like (do it carefully, checking the duck regularly to make sure it doesn’t char too much).
  • After the duck is cooked, remove it from the oven, and let the duck stand for 15 minutes. Then, carefully remove and discard the lemon from the cavity (being careful not to get burned). Carve the duck and serve!
  • TOTAL COOKING TIME: The duck should be roasted for a total of 3 hours at 350 F. These 3 hours of roasting are divided into 4 distinctive time chunks (1-hour breast side up + 40 minutes breast side down + 40 minutes breast side up brushed with balsamic-lemon mixture + 40 minutes breast side up brushed with the honey-balsamic mixture).

Notes

  • The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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