Poultry needs 165°F. Ground beef, pork, veal, and lamb need 160°F. Whole cuts of beef, pork, veal, and lamb (steaks, chops, roasts) need 145°F with a 3-minute rest. Fish needs 145°F or until it flakes easily. These are the U.S. Department of Agriculture's published safe minimums, and they answer one question only: is the food safe to eat. They do not explain why a chicken breast cooked to a safe 165°F can still come out dry, or why a "well done" steak can still be gray and disappointing. Those are separate problems, solved separately.
The full safe minimum internal temperature chart
This chart reflects the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) guidance, restated consistently across FSIS's own published chart and corroborating sources including USDA's own guidance summaries and Cornell Cooperative Extension's food safety pages. Every figure below appears identically across every source checked, with no disagreement.
| Food | Safe minimum internal temperature | Rest time |
|---|---|---|
| Poultry, whole or ground (chicken, turkey, duck) | 165°F | None required |
| Ground meats: beef, pork, veal, lamb | 160°F | None required |
| Whole cuts: beef, pork, veal, lamb (steaks, chops, roasts) | 145°F | 3 minutes |
| Fish and shellfish | 145°F, or until opaque and flakes easily with a fork | None required |
| Egg dishes (casseroles, quiches) | 160°F | None required |
| Eggs cooked plain | Until yolk and white are firm | None required |
| Leftovers and casseroles | 165°F | None required |
Two things about this table are easy to miss. First, the 3-minute rest after 145°F is not a cook's suggestion for better texture. It is part of the safety step itself: during those three minutes the meat's temperature holds steady or continues to climb, and that additional time is what finishes reducing bacteria to a safe level. Skipping the rest and cutting in immediately is not the same food-safety outcome as resting it, even though the thermometer read the same number.
Second, ground meat's rule is 15 degrees hotter than a whole cut of the same animal, and that is not an inconsistency. It reflects how grinding changes where bacteria end up in the meat, covered in full in why ground meat has a different rule from a steak.
Why "safe" and "good" are different questions
A thermometer answers exactly one question: has this food reached a temperature where the pathogens that matter have been reduced to a safe level. It says nothing about whether the texture is pleasant, whether the color looks right, or whether the dish tastes the way you wanted it to.
This is the gap most home cooks fall into. Chicken cooked correctly to 165°F is safe. It can also be dry, because muscle fiber continues to tighten and expel moisture as it climbs through the 140s and 150s on its way to 165°F, regardless of whether the number itself is a safety threshold. The fix for dryness is not a lower temperature (which would be a safety problem, not a solved one), it is technique: brining, not overcooking past the target, and letting carryover heat do some of the work instead of chasing the number with the heat still on. Where to put the thermometer covers the placement mistakes that make people think they hit 165°F when they actually measured a hot spot near the surface and the center was still under.
The same split applies to beef, pork, lamb, and veal. 145°F and the three-minute rest is the safety threshold; how gray or pink the interior looks at that point depends on the cut, the cooking method, and myoglobin chemistry that has nothing to do with safety. A "well-done" cook is a preference, not a food-safety requirement once 145°F and the rest are met.
Where the number actually gets measured
The chart above assumes the thermometer is reading the right spot: the thickest part of the food, away from bone, fat, and the pan or grill grate. A probe touching bone reads faster than the surrounding meat and can show a false-high number while the center is still under temperature. A probe left near the surface of a thick roast reads the outside, not the middle, and will consistently overstate how done the food actually is.
This matters most on foods with an uneven shape, like a whole chicken (thigh, wing joint, and breast all finish at different rates) or a thin cutlet (where "thickest part" might only be half an inch deep). The placement mistakes that cause the biggest gap between "what the thermometer said" and "what was actually true" are broken down by food shape in how to use a meat thermometer.
What this chart does not cover
This chart states the safety minimums and stops there. It does not address:
- Why chicken specifically gets argued about. Some sources claim lower temperatures held for longer are also safe. That claim is real but conditional, and it is explained fully, with its actual sourcing, in chicken at 165°F: what FSIS actually says.
- How long cooked food can sit out, or how long it keeps in the fridge or freezer. Those are holding-time and storage-duration questions, not cooking-temperature questions, and this site does not publish a keeping-time figure.
- Texture fixes for dry chicken or tough meat. The safety number and the texture complaint are different problems, and conflating them is exactly how safety guidance gets quietly softened to fix a texture issue. That does not happen on this site.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure in this chart is the published safe minimum from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the federal agencies that set safe cooking temperatures for the U.S. food supply. These are the figures a U.S. kitchen should cook to, and they are the ones this site uses throughout.
FAQ
Is it safe to eat chicken at a temperature lower than 165°F?
165°F kills relevant pathogens instantly. Lower temperatures can also be safe, but only when the food is held at that temperature for a specific duration, not just touched briefly. This distinction, and where it comes from, is covered in detail in chicken at 165°F: what FSIS actually says.
Why is the ground meat temperature higher than the whole-cut temperature for the same animal?
Grinding distributes any surface bacteria throughout the interior of the meat, where a quick sear cannot reach it the way it can on the surface of a whole cut. That mechanism is explained in why ground meat has a different rule from a steak.
Does the 3-minute rest count if I just let the meat sit on the cutting board before serving?
Yes, as long as it is not returned to intense cooling (like being placed directly on ice or in a cold draft) that pulls the temperature back down quickly. The rest works because the internal temperature holds or continues rising during that window.
Can I trust a thermometer reading if I only check one spot?
Not reliably, especially on irregular shapes like a whole bird or a thick roast. Checking the thickest part, away from bone, and taking more than one reading on larger items is covered in how to use a meat thermometer.
Do these temperatures change for stuffed poultry or casseroles with meat mixed in?
Egg dishes and casseroles carry their own figure (160°F) separate from plain meat, because the mixture and its ingredients change how heat moves through the dish. This chart states the figure; it does not cover recipe-specific stuffing safety, which is outside this site's scope.
