Why Your Chicken Breasts Don't Taste Like They Should

MinuteFood looks at USDA guidelines for cooking chicken to ensure it is safe from passing salmonella on to us. The science that went into the guidelines is considerable, but the total information is quite dense to the average home cook, so government authorities tend to simplify it to "cook chicken to an internal temperature of 165°," which is easy to remember. It's nice to know they err on the side of keeping us safe. Still, most home cooks don't use an internal thermometer to cook dinner every night, so we've fallen into the habit of cooking chicken to death just to be sure. That's why a chicken breast often doesn't taste as good as it should. Maybe it's time to invest in an instant-read meat thermometer.   

The USDA tables and charts with the information from the video can be found here. Chicken is on page 37 and turkey is on page 38. Personally, I rarely cook a whole chicken breast anymore. I tend to cut up meat into small pieces and use it as an ingredient in other dishes, so it could be cooked two or three times before it's eaten, with much of the flavoring coming from spices. Still, the more you know, the better cook you can be!