What temperature should a cooked turkey be

You’ve all been waiting for hours. The house is filled with the enticing aroma of browned turkey, and you can even hear the fat sputtering in the pan. You’re thinking it, everyone in the house is thinking it: when do we get to eat this thing?

If you have a meat thermometer (which is quite a lifesaver on such occasions), the answer is: it depends! 

What’s A Safe Temperature for Roast Turkey?

Okay, okay. We’ll start with the short answer. The USDA says to cook your turkey to a minimum internal temperature of 165°F. (If you stuffed the turkey, the stuffing, not just the meat, should be 165°F). That’s their recommendation for all turkey that starts out raw. This temperature ensures those nasty salmonella bacteria are all blasted, and your turkey is safe to serve.

I’ve roasted numerous whole turkeys and turkey breasts to 165°F and had splendid results with happy guests. It works. If there’s one number to remember, it’s this one.

Are Lower Internal Temperatures Safe?

Good question. Here’s where we get into the physics of roasting. A few of our turkey recipes call for pulling the turkey from the oven before it hits 165°F (in the case of How to Dry Brine and Roast a Turkey, it’s 160°F). How is this even safe?

When you roast any whole bird or big chunk of meat, there’s still residual heat when you remove it from the oven (or grill, or deep fryer, or what have you). The bigger the roast, the more residual heat. As it sits and rests out of the oven, that residual heat will cause the temperature to climb. In essence, your turkey is still cooking after you take it out of the oven. This is called carryover cooking.  

When you pull the turkey at 160°F, the recipe is counting on the carryover cooking to ding the internal temperature up a few degrees to the magic 165°F deemed safe by the USDA. This is why resting your roasted bird is especially important! During the resting time, it’s still cooking.

What About Higher Internal Temperatures?

The Butterball site says to cook their turkey to an internal temperature of 170°F. The chef in me prickles at this, but it’s probably just a safety measure to ensure no one using their methods comes down with salmonella poisoning. And here’s a little trivia for other turkeys: those plastic pop-up thermometers that come already inserted into some are set to go off at 180°F. Yowza!

The trickiest thing about turkey is how the breast dries out after 165°F. But the dark meat – those lovely thighs and drumsticks! – becomes far more succulent when cooked to a higher temperature closer to 170°F, which allow the tough collages to break down into silky gelatin. I’ll even take my thighs up to 180°F, which is why I break down my turkey into parts and cook them to different internal temperatures. 

The whole thing is a little excessive and quite frankly takes a lot of time. After all, most people just think of roasted turkey as a vehicle for delivering gravy.

So, if you just want to roast a simple turkey you can feel secure serving your loved ones, just pop the whole bird in the oven and cook it to 165°F. It works. 

The best way to know when your turkey is done is to temp it. Make sure your Thanksgiving turkey is perfectly cooked by resting the turkey before carving.

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Many supermarket turkeys come with a pre-inserted timer set to pop when the turkey temperature reaches 178 degrees Fahrenheit. But if you wait that long your breast meat will be dry and overcooked. We recommend that you remove the bird from the oven when the breast temperature reaches 165 degrees and the thickest part of the thighs reaches between 170 and 175 degrees.

How to Take the Turkey Temperature

Turkey Breast Temperature
To take the temperature of the breast, insert the thermometer into the deepest part of the breast, holding it parallel to the bird at the neck end. Confirm the temperature by inserting the thermometer in both sides of the breast, being careful to not go so deep as to hit the bone (which can compromise the reading).

Turkey Thigh Temperature
To take the temperature of the thigh, insert the thermometer into the thickest portion of the thigh away from the bone. Confirm the temperature by inserting the thermometer in both thighs.

Here are 3 more tips to know when your turkey is done:

1. Don't be afraid of a little pink meat. Just because a slice of turkey has a pinkish tint doesn't necessarily mean it’s underdone. In general, the red or pink color in meat comes from the red protein pigment called myoglobin in the muscle cells that store oxygen.

2. As long as the meat has registered the prescribed temperature on your thermometer, it's perfectly safe to eat. Dark meat does take longer to cook than white meat because it stores and uses oxygen differently. Turkey legs are composed of active muscles that are fattier, denser, and require more time to come up to the perfect turkey temperature.

3. The turkey needs to rest before carving. About 45 minutes or so gives it time to reabsorb the juices; otherwise they’ll dribble out when you slice, and the meat will be dry. Don’t tent the turkey with foil to keep it warm while it’s resting; it’s unnecessary and will make the skin soggy. As long as the turkey is intact, it will cool quite slowly.

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