Safe Minimum Cooking Temperatures for Meats
The chart below and your food thermometer will help you to ensure that you cook meat, poultry and seafood to a safe minimum internal temperature. Many cooking shows like to popularize the idea that you can tell whether a meat is safely cooked by looking at it. But many cooked, uncured red meats, like pork, can be pink, even when the meat has reached a safe internal temperature. So, you can undercook or overcook a meat by not using a meat thermometer.
And the new wireless electronic meat thermometers make it easy, by even having an alarm set for various types of meats and degrees of wellness. You can receive an alert remotely when the meat on your grill outside reaches the set temperature!
Safe Minimum Cooking Temperatures
Note that the FDA
| Category | Food | Temperature (°F) | Rest Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground Meat & Meat Mixtures | Beef, Pork, Veal, Lamb | 160 | None |
| Turkey, Chicken | 165 | None | |
| Fresh Beef, Veal, Lamb | Steaks, roasts, chops | 145 | 3 minutes |
| Poultry | Chicken & Turkey, whole | 165 | None |
| Poultry breasts, roasts | 165 | None | |
| Poultry thighs, legs, wings | 165 | None | |
| Duck & Goose | 165 | None | |
| Stuffing (cooked alone or in bird) | 165 | None | |
| Pork and Ham | Fresh pork | 145 | 3 minutes |
| Fresh ham (raw) | 145 | 3 minutes | |
| Precooked ham (to reheat) | 140 | None | |
| Eggs & Egg Dishes | Eggs | Cook until yolk and white are firm | None |
| Egg dishes | 160 | None | |
| Leftovers & Casseroles | Leftovers | 165 | None |
| Casseroles | 165 | None | |
| Seafood | Fin Fish | 145 or cook until flesh is opaque and separates easily with a fork. | None |
| Shrimp, lobster, and crabs | Cook until flesh is pearly and opaque. | None | |
| Clams, oysters, and mussels | Cook until shells open during cooking. | None | |
| Scallops | Cook until flesh is milky white or opaque and firm. | None |
About Rest Time - it's important
After you remove meat from a grill, oven, or other heat source, allow it to rest for the specified amount of time. During the rest time, its temperature remains constant or continues to rise, which continues to destroy harmful germs.; so if a rest time is specified in the table above (notably, pork),do follow it!