Ems-FORSTER-PRODUCTIONS/Getty Images

Cooking meat and poultry to that perfect state of "just correct" is not equally elusive as it sounds. While judging doneness by expect and experience is an uncertain art at best, it is actually pretty easy to get great results all the fourth dimension when you use an instant-read thermometer. A thermometer is the only reliable way to measure out internal temperature. Take a few minutes to commit these temperatures to memory or jot them downward in a place almost where yous continue your thermometer.

Meat Temperatures

At what temperature is chicken and turkey done?

To accept the temperature of a whole chicken or turkey, insert the thermometer straight downwardly into the thickest role of the breast near the courage and direct down into the thigh, taking care not to striking the bone (which can cause an wrong reading). If you're cooking chicken parts, stuffed chicken or ground craven, insert the thermometer probe into the thickest part to take the temperature.

Chicken chest: 165 degrees F

Craven thigh: 165 to 175 degrees F

Blimp craven: 165 degrees F

Footing chicken: 170 to 175 degrees F

At what temperature is beef and lamb done?

Insert the thermometer probe into the thickest part of the meat to take the temperature, taking care to avoid any basic if there are any.

Rare: 125 degrees F + 3 minutes of resting time

Medium rare: 130 to 135 degrees F

Medium: 135 to 140 degrees F

Medium well: 140 to 150 degrees F

Well done: 155+ degrees F

At what temperature is pork done?

Insert the thermometer into the thickest part of the meat to take the temperature, taking care to avoid any bones if there are any.

Medium rare: 145 degrees F + 3 minutes rest

Nosotros roasted chickens and checked the temperature throughout the cooking procedure to see how apace the thermometers registered the temperature of the meat. We also tested for accurateness past placing each thermometer in a glass of ice water to encounter how quickly and precisely they measured the freezing temperature. Hither are the best picks.

What is carryover cooking?

Meat will continue cooking even after you lot've removed it from a estrus source. That means if your steak hits the perfect medium-rare temperature on the grill, information technology volition proceed to rise several degrees while information technology'due south resting. Meat temperature can increment 10 degrees or more while it's resting, depending on its size. The larger the cut, the more carryover cooking will occur. So, if you're cooking a larger slice of meat (such as a turkey), you will desire to remove it from the heat source when its several degrees under the USDA's official temperature for doneness.

What to Know About Taking the Temperature of Ground Meat

You may have noticed that basis meat often needs to exist cooked to a slightly college temperature than whole cuts of meat. The food scientist Harold McGee explains a crucial stardom to be made betwixt whole muscle cuts and ground meat: "... meats inevitably harbor bacteria, and it takes temperatures of 160 degrees Fahrenheit or higher to guarantee the rapid destruction of the leaner that can crusade man disease — temperatures at which meat is well-done and has lost much of its wet. So, is eating juicy, pinkish-scarlet meat risky? Not if the cut is an intact slice of salubrious muscle tissue, a steak or chop, and its surface has been thoroughly cooked: bacteria are on the meat surfaces, not inside. " When raw meat is ground up, the distinction between internal and external no longer applies. McGee says: "Footing meats are riskier, because the contaminated meat surface is cleaved into minor fragments and spread through the mass. The interior of a raw hamburger ordinarily does comprise bacteria and is safest if cooked well done." Because Due east. coli is killed at 155 degrees Fahrenheit, the USDA sets the minimum safe temperature for footing beefiness at 160 degrees Fahrenheit. We can merely 2nd this.

A Few Notes on Meat Safety

People very rarely get ill from rare or medium-rare cuts of whole meat. Overwhelmingly, people go sick from the way meat is handled in the habitation: from cross-contagion, lack of cleanliness and property meat at dangerous temps. Internal temperature should be the least of your worries. Nonetheless, nosotros should emphasize that extra caution must be exercised when cooking for at-chance groups, particularly the elderly, children under 7 and the immuno-compromised. In such cases, nosotros suggest the USDA guidelines be strictly followed.