USDA-Recommended Minimum Internal Cooking Temperatures

Professional blogger and cookbook author Bethany Moncel has become an expert on making delicious, healthy meals on a budget. She also holds a nutritional science degree.

Whether you’re grilling, baking, braising, or broiling, cooking food to the proper internal temperature is a key element to preventing foodborne illnesses. Monitoring the internal temperature of meat, poultry, finfish, and eggs will also help prevent overcooking, which means your meals will be just as delicious as they are safe. You can choose to cook them to a higher temperature if you prefer it.

USDA Recommended Minimum Internal Cooking Temperatures and Rest Time

Rest Time

Steaks and Roasts
(Beef, veal, lamb and pork)
Includes fresh, uncooked ham

Ground Meat
(Beef, Pork, Veal, Lamb)

Fully Cooked Ham (reheating)

145 or until the flesh is opaque and you can easily separate it with a fork.

Seafood - shrimp, lobster, crabs, scallops

Seafood in the shell - clams, oysters, mussels

Cook until the shells open.

Cook until the shells open.

Chicken, Turkey, Duck, Goose, including breasts, roasts, thighs, wings, legs

Whole Chickens and Turkeys

Stuffing (in the bird or separately cooked)

Leftovers and Casseroles

Cook until the yolk and white are firm.

Take Meat and Fish's Internal Temperature When Cooking

Be sure to use a well made, reliable probe thermometer when testing the internal temperature of your foods.

• Always place the probe into the thickest part of the meat as this is likely to be the area exposed to the least amount of heat.
• Never touch the probe to bone or cooking surfaces, which can conduct heat and give a falsely increased temperature reading.
• Always thoroughly wash the thermometer with warm soapy water after each use to prevent cross-contamination. Bacteria can linger on the thermometer if you don't wash it. Then it would be transferred to the next food item touched by the thermometer.

Rest Time for Steaks, Roasts, and Chops

These cuts of meat will continue to have their internal temperature rise after you take them off of the heat source. The three-minute rest time for these cuts of beef, pork, veal, and lamb allows the temperature to rise and continue to kill any harmful bacteria.

Don't take these cuts of meat out of the pan or off of the grill and immediately slice them. Let them sit for three minutes before you cut into them.

How Does Minimum Internal Temperature Make Meat and Fish Safer?

Bacteria that can make you sick, such as Salmonella and E. coli, are killed by temperatures of 165 F and above. These bacteria are commonly found on raw meat, fish, and poultry. If you cook foods to the suggested minimum temperature and allow rest time as suggested, you will ensure enough are killed so you are unlikely to get sick from them.

Bacteria grow best between 40 F and 140 F, known as the danger zone. You should always chill uneaten portions as quickly as possible to reduce the amount of time that the food is in this danger zone. Ideally, cooked food should be chilled to below 40 F within two hours of cooking.

Be sure to keep raw meat separate from other foods so bacteria aren't transferred from them to food you won't be cooking, such as salads. Use separate cutting boards, knives, bowls, and other utensils for raw meat and other food.

_{Safe minimum cooking temperatures. https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html.}

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