How to check if whole chicken is cooked with thermometer

Unsure what temperature your chicken should be so that it is safe to eat without being dry and overdone? The short answer for juicy, properly cooked chicken is 150 F for at least 3 minutes for white meat and 175 F for dark meat. Read on for more information about where these numbers come from and for tips and tricks for cooking the best chicken possible.

Watch Now: The Correct Temperature for Juicy Chicken Every Time

Calculating Chicken Temperatures

When it comes to cooking chicken, there are a lot of temperatures to keep in mind. There's the temperature you set your oven to, then there's the actual temperature of the chicken itself (known as the internal temperature), which is measured with an instant-read thermometer. And then there's the minimum safe internal temperature with respect to food safety—in other words, the temperature your chicken needs to reach to ensure that any harmful bacteria it might harbor, like salmonella or campylobacter, are killed.

Last but not least, there is the chicken temperature for quality purposes—so that the breast meat is firm and white but not stringy and dry, and the dark meat is tender rather than rubbery.

White Meat Doneness

The USDA recommends that chicken and poultry be cooked to a minimum internal temperature of 165 F for at least 30 seconds. However, due to carry over cooking, if you pull the chicken breast once it reaches an internal temperature of approximately 162 F, the chicken will retain heat and continue to rise in temperature to reach the necessary 165 F without overcooking and drying out the meat.

Dark Meat Doneness

Chicken thighs and all chicken dark meat tend to taste better when cooked to a higher temperature—175 to 180 F—due to their higher amounts of connective tissue. Cooking thigh meat to 165 F will yield chewy, rubbery meat, but at 175 to 180 F, it will be tender and juicy as the collagen melts and turns to gelatin.

Roasting a Perfect Chicken

The following steps for roasting a whole chicken will yield white and dark meat that is tender, succulent, and properly cooked.

1. Preheat the oven to 500 F.
2. Place the chicken in a roasting pan with a rack. Season with kosher salt.
3. Insert an ovenproof digital probe thermometer into the deepest part of the breast and set it to alert you when the temperature reaches 162 F.
4. Transfer the chicken to the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 350 F.
5. Wait approximately 90 minutes for the alarm on the thermometer to beep.
6. Remove the chicken from the oven and let it rest for 30 minutes, leaving the probe in the breast.
7. After 30 minutes, carve and serve.

Resting the Chicken

During the resting period, you'll see the temperature on the digital probe display continue to rise and then fall. When it completes its rise and eventually dips down to 120 F, it's ready to carve.

Because the temperature of a roasted chicken continues to rise for several minutes after taking it out of the oven, if you pull it out when the breast is 162 F and let it rest for 30 minutes, that breast meat will remain above 165 F for more than the required 8.4 minutes, making it tender, juicy, and perfectly safe. Likewise with the dark meat, which will eventually peak at around 200 F, which is more than sufficient for the collagen in the meat to break down, ensuring tender, juicy, flavorful dark meat.

Bear in mind that the times and temperatures above refer only to roasting a whole chicken. It's the overall mass of the whole chicken that allows it to hold those temperatures during the resting time. If you tried roasting an individual chicken breast, it wouldn't work the same way.

Sous Vide Chicken Breasts

There is one technique that is perfect for cooking individual cuts of chicken to a certain temperature and holding them at that temperature. It's called sous vide cooking.

With this cooking method, it's a simple matter to heat your chicken breast to 165 F for as long as you want. The added advantage of sous vide is that no matter how long you leave it in the water bath, your chicken breast will never get any hotter than 165 F (or whatever temperature you set it to). This ensures juicy, tender breast meat with minimal effort.

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How to tell when your meat is ready—with or without a thermometer.

Have you ever taken meat off the grill and declared "dinners ready!" - only to sheepishly return minutes later to put your partially cooked steak, chicken or burger back on the flames? Perhaps the only thing worse is trying to chew through an overcooked, tough piece of meat.

So how do you ensure that your meat is done before whisking it off the grill, or worse–overcooking it? While the most reliable way to know if your meat is really cooked is to use a thermometer, there are some other trustworthy methods to use.

1. Use a meat thermometer . . . correctly

When you are using a digital thermometer to check for doneness, insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. If you're cooking meat on the bone, make sure the thermometer isn't touching the bone–it's a conductor of heat and could give you a false reading. Also, know your temperatures. The USDA's recommended safe minimum internal temperatures are as follows: beef, veal, lamb and pork (steaks and roasts): 145°F; fish: 145°F; ground beef: 160°F; and poultry: 165°F.

2. Feel the meat

While food safety experts encourage home cooks to use thermometers, some meat-cooking aficionados like to use the "finger test" as a reference for checking for doneness. There are a couple of ways to do it, but my favorite is: to know what raw meat feels like, pinch the flesh of your hand below your thumb, while your hand is relaxed. To know what medium-rare meat feels like, touch your middle finger lightly to your thumb and pinch it. To know what medium-cooked meat feels like, touch your ring finger to your thumb. To know what well-done meat feels like, touch your pinkie and thumb together. It takes some practice to master this touch-and-feel technique. So use your thermometer as a backup until you think you have the hang of the "finger test" method. (This method works best on smaller cuts of meat.)

3. Poke the meat to see if juices are red or clear

This method applies to chicken specifically. For properly cooked chicken, if you cut into it and the juices run clear, then the chicken is fully cooked. If the juices are red or have a pinkish color, your chicken may need to be cooked a bit longer. Some home cooks don't like this method because a) you really don't want to consume chicken that is cooked below 165°F (and you wouldn't really know unless you used a thermometer or cut into it) and b) those juices that are escaping are arguably better staying in your meat to keep it moist.

4. Check the size-did the meat shrink?

It's easy to get thrown off by observing just the exterior color of your meat, especially when it comes to something like grilling. Your steak or chicken breast could look ready to eat on the outside with lovely grill marks, but still be cold on the inside. One thing you can observe when you cook on the grill is the size of your meat. If it looks nice and charred on the outside but hasn't shrunk at all, it probably needs a longer cooking time. If it starts to look smaller, then chances are it's close to done. The change will be subtle. If your meat is quite a bit smaller than when you started, it may be overcooked.

Is chicken done at 165 or 180?