What temperature should I use for sous-vide chicken breasts?
I'm finally going to advance my sous vide repertoire from just steaks to poultry. I know the safety issues and am familiar with the salmonella death rate chart. What I'm wondering about is the texture of the meat itself.
I've been cooking chicken on the grill and in the oven and in the pan and have grown used to a particular texture for the meat. Most of these techniques end up taking the breast meat up to the 160-165 F range.
With sous vide I have a much better control over what temperature I can safely eat the meat at, however I don't want the texture to drive me away from the experience. I was thinking of preparing the chicken at around 150-155.
Does anyone have any experience with poultry at these lower temperatures?
Best Answer
Go for 145. 2 hours.
Salmonella dies even at "low" temperatures (from 135) as long as you cook it for longer.
135 for at least 87 minutes, will kill salmonella.
However, I like it best when cooked at 145 for 2 hours.
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What temperature do I sous vide chicken breast?
InstructionsHow long should I sous vide boneless skinless chicken breast?
I recommend cooking your boneless skinless chicken breasts sous vide for 1 hour. Some prefer to cook their chicken breasts for 75 minutes, but I find 1 hour is absolutely enough time for this sous vide chicken breast recipe, it gets those perfectly tender chicken breasts to my plate even sooner!Is it safe to sous vide chicken at 145 degrees?
Is sous vide chicken safe? Yes! Sous vide chicken is safe to eat even though it is not cooked to 165\xb0F. While the FDA recommends cooking the chicken to 165\xb0F to pasteurize it; pasteurization is actually based on both the temperature and time it is at that temperature.Can you sous vide chicken at 135 degrees?
Sous Vide White Meat Safety When cooking white meat you want to make sure you cook it long enough to pasteurize it. This can be done at any temperature above 130\xb0F (54.4\xb0C) though chicken is usually cooked above 136\xb0F (57.7\xb0C).The BEST way to cook juicy chicken breasts - Sous Vide
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Answer 2
I find 58C (136F) for 2.5+ hours to give the best results. I experimented with 60 and 62C for a little while but found that there is considerable moisture loss once you get above 60. Longer cooking times don't matter much; I've forgotten about the meat on more than one occasion and left it overnight (8-9 hours?) with no adverse impact on the final product. I personally found chicken breast after 24 hours unappealing, but my partner liked it - I would describe the texture as 70% meat, 30% cake? I would avoid shorter times though - 2.5 hours is usually well inside the safe margins for the thickness of meat I'm using according to Doug Baldwin's models.
However the biggest (positive) difference in the result has been from switching meat suppliers, and in a literally eye-opening way too: Organic chicken breast makes for a significantly nicer result every single time!
We actually did blind testing across multiple batches of meat and across several weeks, and found we could pick the organic chicken with 100% accuracy. There are differences between even organic suppliers, but in general the stringiness was gone, the meat cut in straight lines without tearing or shredding along muscle fibres, and it was noticeably more moist and juicy.
I suspect that the difference comes largely from better quality feed and the fact that the animals tend to be (at least in Australia) slower-growing breeds and ~50% older when slaughtered, thus have more time to develop more flavourful muscles.
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