Carryover cooking and where to put the thermometer
Meat keeps cooking after it leaves the heat, because the hot outside is still driving energy into the cooler centre. That is carryover. It is why a joint that reads perfectly in the oven reads over on the board ten minutes later. Two things control it: how far you push the probe in the right place, and how much rise you allow for. There is no single pull temperature that works across every cut, so this page gives you probe placement, working rise ranges, and the safety boundary that decides whether "pink" is even an option.
Where the probe goes
An instant-read thermometer is only as good as the spot you put it in. The FSA cooking guidance is blunt about the principle: use a food thermometer on the thickest part of the food, avoiding bone. Bone conducts heat differently from muscle and will flatter your reading. Fat pockets and gristle do the same.
| Cut | Where to push the probe | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Steak or chop, 2 cm plus | Through the side, into the middle of the thickest section, probe running parallel to the surfaces | Sliding through into the pan; reading the seared face |
| Thin steak or minute cut | Side entry along the length; if the cut is thinner than the sensor tip, judge by time and touch instead | A vertical stab that reads mostly surface |
| Whole chicken | Thickest part of the thigh, from the side, angled towards but not touching the thigh bone | The thigh bone, the cavity, and the breast alone |
| Chicken breast or supreme | Widest end, entering from the thick end towards the centre | The tapered tip, which finishes long before the shoulder |
| Rolled or stuffed joint | The geometric centre, which on a rolled joint is the last place to heat | The outer layers and the string line |
| Burgers and meatballs | Through the side into the middle | The domed top, which is thinner than it looks |
| Leg or shoulder on the bone | The thickest muscle, angled away from the bone | The bone, and any seam of fat |
Take more than one reading. On the line we probe a joint in two or three places and act on the coldest number, because a joint is not a uniform block and the cold spot is the one that matters. Go in through the same hole each time rather than perforating the piece, and clean and disinfect the probe between uses, especially between raw and cooked.
[CHEF NOTE] The single most common domestic thermometer error I see is the probe going in from the top and stopping short, so the tip sits in the upper third rather than the middle. Enter from the side wherever the shape allows it. You can see how far in you are, and the sensor ends up where you meant it to be.
How much it rises
Peak rise is the difference between the temperature when you take the food off the heat and the highest temperature it reaches while it rests. It scales with mass and with how hard the outside was driven. The numbers below are working ranges from a domestic kitchen, not laboratory figures, and they will shift with your oven, your resting spot and the weight of the piece.
| Cut | Typical peak rise | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Thin steaks and chops under 2 cm | 1–3°C (2–5°F) | Small mass, little stored energy |
| Thick steaks 3–5 cm | 3–6°C (5–11°F) | Rises more after a hard sear than after a gentle roast |
| Whole chicken, 1.5–2 kg | 4–8°C (7–14°F) | Thigh and breast rise at different rates |
| Roasting joint 2 kg plus | 5–10°C (9–18°F) | Biggest and slowest; keep probing during the rest |
| Low and slow braise or gentle roast | 1–3°C (2–5°F) | Small gap between surface and centre, so little to give back |
The pattern worth remembering is the gap. High heat creates a large temperature difference between the outside and the centre, and that difference is the fuel for carryover. A gentle roast at a low oven temperature barely moves. A steak off a very hot pan can keep climbing for several minutes after it lands on the board.
The boundary that decides everything
Whether you can aim for a pink centre at all is not a matter of taste. It depends on the cut.
The FSA's position is that an intact whole cut of beef or lamb carries bacteria on its surface rather than through the middle, so it can be served pink in the centre according to taste provided the outside has been properly seared. That exception does not travel. Poultry and pork must be cooked thoroughly all the way through. Minced meat and rolled or skewered joints must also be cooked through, because the mincing or rolling moves surface bacteria into the middle.
For anything in that second group, the target is a safe cooked condition in the centre, not a doneness preference. The FSA's validated combinations for the middle of the food are 70°C (158°F) for 2 minutes, or 60°C (140°F) for 45 minutes, 65°C (149°F) for 10 minutes, 75°C (167°F) for 30 seconds, or 80°C (176°F) for 6 seconds. Note that they are temperature and time together, not a single instantaneous number. Resting is not a substitute for reaching that condition, and carryover is not a licence to pull poultry early and hope.
That is also why this page does not carry a universal pull chart. A chart implies one target for one word like "medium", across every thickness, every oven and every category of meat, and it quietly invites the reader to apply a beef number to a chicken.
Log your own rise once
You only need to do this properly once per cut you cook often, and then you have real numbers instead of borrowed ones.
- Weigh the piece and note the oven or pan temperature and the cut thickness.
- Probe the cold spot and record the temperature at the moment it comes off the heat.
- Rest it in the place you normally rest it, uncovered on a rack or tented, and record which.
- Probe again at one minute, three minutes and five minutes, through the same hole, until the number stops climbing.
- Write down the peak and subtract the pull reading. That difference is your rise for that cut, in your kitchen.
Repeat with the same cut a second time before you trust it. One reading is an anecdote.
Resting without wrecking the crust
Rest on a rack over a tray, not on a flat plate. A piece sitting in its own juices steams its underside soft, and a crust you worked for on the pan disappears in the puddle. Tent a steak loosely if the kitchen is cold, but a tight foil wrap traps steam against the surface and does the same damage more slowly. If you seared it properly, the work is in the searing method, and resting is where you protect it rather than where you improve it.
Rest length follows mass, not a rule. A few minutes for a steak or a chop, longer for a roasting joint, and long enough on a whole bird that the thigh juices settle. A joint held in a warm place will lose surface temperature more slowly than one on a cold worktop, so the resting spot is part of the plan, not an afterthought.
The juices on the tray are not waste. They belong in the pan alongside the browned residue, which is where the pan sauce comes from. Only add resting juices from food that has reached its safe final condition.
[CHEF NOTE] Resting is a scheduling problem before it is a cooking problem. The rest is dead time you have to design around, which is exactly why it appears as a named block on the clock rather than as an afterthought when you work a meal backwards from the plate.
When the number looks wrong
| What you see | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Reading jumps around | Probe tip in fat, near bone, or moving | Reseat from the side into muscle and hold still |
| Centre reads high, tastes underdone | Probe too shallow, reading the hot zone | Enter from the side and go to the middle |
| Rise much larger than expected | Very hot surface, or a bigger piece than usual | Note it in your log and pull earlier next time for that cut |
| Rise almost nil | Gentle cooking, thin piece, or a cold resting spot | Normal; carryover is small when the gap is small |
| Chicken pink at the bone | Common near bone, but not proof of doneness either way | Judge on a probed centre reading against a safe time and temperature combination |
A thermometer does not make you a better cook on its own. It makes you a cook who is not guessing, which is a different and more useful thing.
The kit for this job. An instant-read thermometer and a half sheet pan with a rack so the joint rests on air, not in its own juice. Affiliate links; the full list is on The Kit.
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