Is It Done Yet? 4 Ways to Really Know If Your Meat Is Cooked (2024)

Pictured Recipe: Herb-Grilled Chicken Frites

Have you ever taken meat off the grill and declared "dinners ready!"—only to sheepishly return minutes later to put your partially cooked chicken, steak or burger back over the flames? Perhaps the only thing worse is trying to chew through an overcooked, tough piece of meat.

So how do you ensure your meat is done before whisking it off the grill, or worse—overcooking it? While the most reliable way to know if your meat is really cooked is to use a thermometer, there are other trustworthy methods to use.

Learn how to know when chicken is done, along with beef, pork and fish.

1. Use a Meat Thermometer

Pictured Recipe: Tomahawk Cowboy Steak

When you are using a digital thermometer to check for doneness, insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. If you're cooking meat on the bone, make sure the thermometer isn't touching the bone—it's a conductor of heat and could give you a false reading. Also, know your temperatures. The USDA's recommended safe minimum internal temperatures are as follows: 145°F for beef (steaks and roasts), veal, lamb and pork, as well as fish;160°F for ground beef; and 165°F for poultry.

2. Feel the Meat

While food safety experts encourage home cooks to use thermometers, some meat-cooking aficionados like to use the "finger test" as a reference for checking for doneness. There are a couple of ways, but this is my favorite. You just need to know what meat feels like in various stages of cooking. Start by learning what raw meat feels like by pinching the flesh of your hand below your thumb while your hand is relaxed. To know what rare feels like, lightly touch the tip of your pointer finger to the tip of your thumb. For medium-rare, switch your middle finger to the tip of your thumb; for medium-cooked, test with the ring finger and the thumb; and for well-done, move your pinkie to the thumb. It takes some practice to master this touch-and-feel technique, so use your thermometer as a backup until you think you have the hang of the "finger test" method. (Note: This method works best on smaller cuts of meat.)

3. Poke the Meat

Pictured Recipe: Persian Grilled Chicken

This method applies to chicken specifically. For properly cooked chicken, if you cut into it and the juices run clear, then the chicken is fully cooked. If the juices are red or have a pinkish color, your chicken may need to be cooked a bit longer. Some home cooks don't like this method because chicken shouldn't be consumed below 165°F (so you need a thermometer). And when you cut into the chicken, you start losing the juices that keep the chicken moist.

4. Check the Size

When grilling meat, it's easy to get thrown off by observing just the exterior color of it. Your steak or chicken breast could look ready to eat based on the lovely grill marks, but it could still be cold on the inside. One trick is to keep track of the size of the meat you're grilling and not let it shrink too much. If it looks nice and charred on the outside but hasn't shrunk in size, it probably needs a longer cooking time. If it starts to look smaller, then chances are it's close to done—the change will be subtle, so really keep an eye on it. However, if your meat gets quite a bit smaller than when you started, it may be overcooked.