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Meat Temperature & Meat Doneness Guide

When are steaks, chops, chicken, and other foods done?

"The idea that you would rely on intuition to judge something you are terrible at judging makes very little sense to me. Why don't you blindfold yourself too?" Nathan Myhrvold, food scientist, author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

I want my meats tender, juicy, and flavorful. I also want them safe. The temperature of the meat controls all of these things.

The USDA publishes a meat temperature guide, and it is misleading and oversimplified (for more on this see my article on food safety). Even so, everyone reprints it because they are afraid of being sued. No professional chef would use the USDA guide. Below is the most complete and accurate temperature guide you will ever find. These are the temps that pros use.

Notes on the chart

Medium rare is the best temp for beef, lamb, and duck breasts. Food scientists have equipment to measure tenderness and juiciness. Medium rare wins. As the temperature rises above 140°F proteins start to bunch up, get chewy, and squeeze out juices. So if you order meat medium or well done, don't complain if it is not juicy or if it is tough. That's what you ordered. Click here for more on The longer you cook it the tougher it gets.meat science.

Roasts and carryover. Take large thick roasts of beef, lamb, veal, or pork loin out of the heat at 5°F less than the desired temp and they will rise about 5°F in the 10 minutes of resting. This is called carryover. Actual carryover can vary depending on the shape of the meat. Thin steaks will not rise much in temp. Carryover also has to do with the cooking temp. If you are cooking hot, carryover can be up to 10°F. If you are cooking low, it might not go up the full 5°F. But 5°F is a good rule of thumb for most roasts.

Resting meat. When my trusty thermometer says the meat is ready, I take it away from the heat and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Resting is important because meat is mostly water, and heat makes the water expand and generate pressure within the cells. Some of the liquid is driven to the surface. When meat is removed from the heat the pressure drops a bit and the juices reabsorb into the muscle. When you cut into the meat, less juice is spilled and more juice makes it into your mouth. For properly cooked, tender, and moist food, remove the meat from the heat when it reaches the temp in the chart in the thickest part and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Pork steaks and roasts. Once upon a time it was easy to get the parasite trichinosis (trick-a-NO-sis) from undercooked pork. Today trichinosis has been all but eradicated in developed countries. Trichinosis is caused by eating raw or undercooked pork and some wild game infected with the larvae of a species of the parasitic worm, trichinella. The annual average is now fewer than 40 cases per year in the US, most associated with eating undercooked wild game such as bear. Trichinosis from pork was about five cases per year in 2006, mostly from eating uninspected home grown hogs. The number of cases in pork has decreased because of improved farming and processing methods as well as public awareness of the importance of proper cooking. Trichinosis is killed at 138°F, so I like to remove chops from the heat at 140°F and roasts 135°F (carryover takes them to 140°F). At 140°F there will be a hint of pink, and the meat will be moist and juicy.

Pork ribs, pork shoulders, and beef brisket. We deliberately cook pork ribs and shoulders for pulled pork up to 180 to 190°F, well past well done, in order to melt the collagens, connective tissues, and fats that are so rife in these tough cuts.

Burgers, ground meat, and sausage. Serve at 160°F. That's the USDA recommended temp and it should be adhered to closely. Alas, it is also well done. The risk of E. coli 0157H:7 is too great to mess around undercooking ground meat. Why is ground meat different than whole muscle meat? During butchering of the carcass the intestines are often cut open by mistake. The fecal matter within, full of dangerous pathogens, can get on the meat and on the butcher's knives. This is not a problem for steaks because the pathogens do not migrate far into the muscle fiber. They remain on the surface and they are killed rapidly by cooking. But when meat is ground, the contamination on the surface is mixed into the center. If it is not served at 160°F, it can find its way into your gut and cause discomfort, illness, or even death. So ground meat must be cooked to a higher temp than whole muscle meat. Don't screw around. The risk is too high, especially for young and elderly people at your table.

Chicken and turkey. Researchers tell us that practically all chicken and turkey have salmonella in the juices. I find it helpful to think of raw chicken and turkey as poisonous. USDA says to serve poultry at 165°F and most chefs agree and remove it at no lower than 160°F. Measure the breast at its thickest part since it takes longest to cook and dries out most easily. At 165°F it is still juicy. Much higher and you'll be eating cardboard. The transition happens rapidly. The juices should run clear and any pink could be dangerous. That said, safe chicken can have some bright red parts attached to the bone. Again, a good thermometer is what you need.

Fish. USDA recommends serving it at 145°F because fish are susceptible to parasites, often from the droppings of warm blooded animals such as seals. If I am absolutely certain the fish is dead fresh and free of parasites, especially cold water fish, I will remove it from heat at 135°F when the meat is slightly translucent, flakes easily, and is tender and moist. It is easy to overcook fish, so be vigilant.

Pre-cooked ham. Serve at 140°F. This stuff is cured and pre-cooked, so you are really just warming it. No need to dry it out. USDA agrees.

Eggs. OK, so eggs aren't meat. But I've included them because we eat them and they pose a safety risk. It is estimated that one in 20,000 eggs is contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis in the US, and in the Northeast US it may be one in 10,000. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that one in 50 consumers eats a contaminated egg each year because large batches of eggs are pooled by food processors and restaurants. Salmonella is widespread among hens nowadays and it infects the ovaries of otherwise healthy appearing hens. In the ovaries it infects eggs before the shells are formed. Salmonella growth is inhibited by refrigeration, so eggs should not be kept at room temp. Cooking eggs to 160°F, so their yolks are firm, makes them safe. You should use a thermometer on egg-based casseroles. If you like runny yolks or dishes made with lightly cooked eggs such as soft boiled eggs, pasta carbonara, egg nog, caesar salad dressing, custards, or bearnaise and hollandaise sauces, it is strongly recommended that you use pasteurized eggs. They are perfectly safe, they taste great, and they are now widely available.

Myth 1: You can tell the temp of the meat by poking it

The internet and a lot of cookbooks tell you that you can tell when meat is ready by poking it and comparing its resistance to the flesh on your hand. This is utter nonsense! The resistence of the steak is going to depend on what cut of meat you are poking (sirloin is stiffer than filet), the grade of meat (prime is more tender than select), how thick it is (thick cuts will yield more than thin), the age of the steer (young is more tender), the breed of steer (cooked Wagyu is more tender than Holstein), the age of the meat (wet aged is more tender than fresh killed), and what the steer was fed (corn fed is usually more tender than grass fed), among other things.

In addition, the resilience of our hands differs from young to old, from thin to fat, from exerciser to couch potato. Why do so many cookbook authors buy this bunk?

It is true that top steakhouse chefs can tell a steak's internal temp just by poking it. But she has poked thousands of steaks, all from the same supplier, all the same thickness, all cooked at the same temp. I can't tell, and I doubt if you can either.

I need a thermometer. Hey! Meat is expensive. It is costly and embarrassing to overcook it. Friends and family are priceless. It is not nice to kill them.

Doneness and color are controlled by one thing and one thing only, the temperature of the meat. For home cooks, there simply is no substitute for a good digital instant thermometer like the ones I recommend in my Buying Guide to Thermometers.

Here's what the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says, and about this they are absolutely correct: "The color of cooked meat and poultry is not always a sure sign of its degree of doneness. Only by using a food thermometer can one accurately determine that a meat has reached a safe temperature. Turkey, fresh pork, ground beef or veal can remain pink even after cooking to temperatures of 160°F and higher. The meat of smoked turkey is always pink." In addition, smoked meats are often pink due to a chemical reaction with the smoke, rare hamburgers can be brown, and chicken cooked well above the safe temp can still have bloody splotches.

Myth #2: The red stuff is blood

It's not blood! Some folks are turned off by the red juice that is commonly called "blood". It is not blood and people we should stop calling it blood. It is myoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen from the blood to the meat fibers.

If it was blood, it would turn black and coagulate on your plate! You've seen this occasionally when a bit of blood left in the marrow of a bone leaks out when you cook. It gets hard and black. Like a scab. But the bright red liquid in your plate is thin, fluid, and flavorful. That's because it is myoglobin, not blood.

In Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry by David L. Nelson and Michael M. Cox, 4th Edition, 2005, it says "Myoglobin is a relatively small oxygen-binding protein of muscle cells [emphasis mine]. It functions both to store oxygen and to facilitate oxygen diffusion in rapidly contracting muscle tissue." They go on to explain that myoglobin contains the heme portion of iron that gives muscle its red color, just as it gives hemoglobin in blood its red color. Apparently the only time myoglobin is found in the bloodstream is after a muscle injury.

Let's just call it "juice"!

Myth #3. Follow recipe cooking times carefully

Many cookbooks tell you to cook some cuts for X minutes per pound. You've got to be careful with these rules of thumb because they are for "typical" cuts. Thickness is the really crucial factor, not the weight. Other factors that can influence cooking time are the temperature of the meat before you start cooking, the type of cooker, the amount of bone, how many times you open the cooker, the humidity in the cooker, how much other food is in the cooker, and how much of a fat cover there is since fat cooks at a different rate. There is no substitute for a good thermometer.

This page was revised 8/19/2011