The interesting history behind Ina Garten's engagement chicken, which might have prompted Prince Harry's proposal to Meghan Markle

• The legend of "engagement chicken" can be traced back to 1982.
• The story goes that multiple magazine editors got engaged after making the dish for their partners.

Celebrity chef Ina Garten has achieved many things in her life, from publishing more than a dozen cookbooks to winning multiple Emmys.

But, for some fans, her greatest impact has been with her roast-chicken recipe — a dish that's so good, it's reportedly sparked marriage proposals.

The history behind 'engagement chicken' goes back to before Ina Garten published her own recipe

According to Glamour, the concept of "engagement chicken" first came about in 1982 when a fashion editor at the magazine shared a roast-chicken recipe with an assistant. After the assistant cooked the chicken for her boyfriend, he proposed a month later. She then shared the recipe with multiple colleagues, who all got engaged shortly after making it.

Thus, the legend of engagement chicken was born.

The recipe was officially published in a 2004 issue of Glamour. Still, other recipes for engagement chicken have since been popularized, including one by Rachael Ray and, perhaps most famous of all, Ina Garten's recipe, which was published in her first cookbook, "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook," in 1999.

The recipe may have contributed to one of the most famous proposals of all time

Prince Harry proposed to Meghan Markle in November 2017 in Kensington Palace's north garden. Before the proposal, Meghan was roasting a chicken and Harry popped a bottle of champagne, even though he doesn't drink it.

"That slightly gave the game away," Harry said in their Netflix series, "Harry & Meghan."

As Meghan told the BBC after their engagement in 2017, "[We were] trying to roast a chicken and it just — just an amazing surprise, it was so sweet and natural and very romantic. He got on one knee."

While Meghan never explicitly said which recipe she used that night, she had previously said she was a fan of Garten.

"There is nothing as delicious (or as impressive) as a perfectly roasted chicken," Meghan told Good Housekeeping in 2016. "If you have an Ina Garten-level roasted-chicken recipe, it's a game changer. I bring that to parties and make a lot of friends."

Emily Blunt also joked on the River Cafe's "Ruthie's Table 4" podcast in 2021 that Garten's recipe was "all it took" to win the heart of her husband, John Krasinski.

The recipe itself is really simple to make

The recipe for Ina Garten's engagement chicken calls for a 4-to-5-pound roasting chicken, garlic, lemons, Spanish onions, and olive oil, plus seasoning and a few ingredients to make a gravy.

"This is my version of the Glamour magazine girls' engagement chicken," Garten said as she shared the recipe on her cooking show "Barefoot Contessa" in 2009.

Whether the recipe leads to a proposal or not, our own trial of the recipe was a hit at a dinner party.

Descriptions of the roast chicken included "juicy," "tender," and "flavorful." One guest even admitted they're pretty critical of chicken, but loved this recipe.