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Cooking chicken to 170 F is a good way to to be safe and also ensure nobody enjoys your chicken. There are various temperatures depending on the cut that are sa

Cooking chicken to 170 F is a good way to to be safe and also ensure nobody enjoys your chicken. There are various temperatures depending on the cut that are safe. If you can check your chicken to know that it is 170 then you have a thermometer to check it at other temperatures. If you have a sous vide machine you can go even lower, you just have to increase the time. https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-chicken-breast https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-s... https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-take-meat-temperature-thermometer-cooking-doneness https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-take-meat-temperature-the...

powersnail 5y ago
> also ensure nobody enjoys your chicken That's an overstatement. Plenty of dishes cooks chicken all the way to well-done and the result is still delicious. For instance, chicken adobo let the chicken sit in a simmering pot for nearly an hour, and it's absolutely delicious.
- hypersoar 5y ago
  There's a big difference between cooking dark meat and white meat. Thighs and drumsticks can easily go higher and still be good, or even better. But breasts lack the fat and connective tissue that breaks down in longer cooks, so they're a lot less forgiving.
  - QuercusMax 5y ago
    Cooking thighs / legs to less than 185 generally results in poor texture.
    - Scramblejams 5y ago
      I'm happy with chicken thighs below that, but I pulled a turkey out at 165F internal temp once and it felt disturbingly underdone. Some of it was still pink. Safe, but not very enjoyable.
      - rackjack 5y ago
        I personally wouldn't feel safe eating pink turkey.
        Scramblejams 5y ago
        Heh yeah, it was weird. We were all fine, but it was weird. A good reminder that appearance is an unreliable indicator of safety, even if in this case the appearance was a false positive.
specialp 5y ago
The articles you link refer to cooking in a sous vide which most people are not. So yes you could kill enough bacteria to be safe following that article if you kept it at 150 deg for 2.8 minutes but with standard cooking that is not easy to measure or maintain. That is why the guideline is 170 instant read because the pasteurization time at that temp is 0.
- phonypc 5y ago
  >if you kept it at 150 deg for 2.8 minutes but with standard cooking that is not easy to measure or maintain It's actually surprisingly hard not to do that. Unless you're cooking at unusually low pan/oven temperatures, the internal temperature of a chicken breast taken off at 150° will probably hit 155° or higher over the next couple minutes.
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    (provided that parts of the meat closer to the cooking surface are > 155º when taken off)
- bagacrap 5y ago
  I don't find it hard since I leave a thermometer inside the chicken breast while it's roasting.

powersnail 5y ago

> also ensure nobody enjoys your chicken That's an overstatement. Plenty of dishes cooks chicken all the way to well-done and the result is still delicious. For instance, chicken adobo let the chicken sit in a simmering pot for nearly an hour, and it's absolutely delicious.

hypersoar 5y ago
There's a big difference between cooking dark meat and white meat. Thighs and drumsticks can easily go higher and still be good, or even better. But breasts lack the fat and connective tissue that breaks down in longer cooks, so they're a lot less forgiving.
- QuercusMax 5y ago
  Cooking thighs / legs to less than 185 generally results in poor texture.
  - Scramblejams 5y ago
    I'm happy with chicken thighs below that, but I pulled a turkey out at 165F internal temp once and it felt disturbingly underdone. Some of it was still pink. Safe, but not very enjoyable.
    - rackjack 5y ago
      I personally wouldn't feel safe eating pink turkey.
      - Scramblejams 5y ago
        Heh yeah, it was weird. We were all fine, but it was weird. A good reminder that appearance is an unreliable indicator of safety, even if in this case the appearance was a false positive.

specialp 5y ago

The articles you link refer to cooking in a sous vide which most people are not. So yes you could kill enough bacteria to be safe following that article if you kept it at 150 deg for 2.8 minutes but with standard cooking that is not easy to measure or maintain. That is why the guideline is 170 instant read because the pasteurization time at that temp is 0.

phonypc 5y ago
>if you kept it at 150 deg for 2.8 minutes but with standard cooking that is not easy to measure or maintain It's actually surprisingly hard not to do that. Unless you're cooking at unusually low pan/oven temperatures, the internal temperature of a chicken breast taken off at 150° will probably hit 155° or higher over the next couple minutes.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  (provided that parts of the meat closer to the cooking surface are > 155º when taken off)
bagacrap 5y ago
I don't find it hard since I leave a thermometer inside the chicken breast while it's roasting.