Sous Vide Chicken Breast: Time and Temperature

Sous vide chicken breast cooks at 145°F (62.8°C) for tender, juicy meat. A breast 1.5 in (3.8 cm) thick needs a minimum of 2 hours 30 minutes, with a best window of 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours 30 minutes and a maximum of 4 hours.

The time depends on thickness, not weight, so measure the thickest piece through its thickest part before you start.

Temperature and doneness

The calculator has four settings for chicken breast, from 140°F (60°C) to 160°F (71.1°C).

How the four compare:

• 140°F (60°C) gives very soft, very juicy meat, much softer than roast chicken. It also takes the longest.
• 145°F (62.8°C) is the default. The meat is tender and juicy.
• 150°F (65.6°C) is juicy and tender with a slightly stringy, more familiar texture.
• 160°F (71.1°C) is firm and a little stringy, like roast chicken, and still moist.

The texture changes because muscle loses more water as it gets hotter. Douglas Baldwin's guide to sous vide cooking explains that muscle fibers shrink in width between 105°F and 140°F (41°C and 60°C). Above 140°F to 150°F (60°C to 66°C) they shrink along their length and lose much more water, and the shrinking grows with temperature.

Baldwin notes that light poultry meat is traditionally cooked well done, to 160°F to 175°F (71°C to 79°C). With sous vide, he writes, chicken and turkey breasts can be cooked to a medium doneness of 140°F to 150°F (60°C to 66°C) and still be pasteurized.

Dark meat needs a higher temperature to become tender, so the guide to chicken thighs starts at 150°F (65.6°C), and chicken wings default to 165°F (73.9°C). The chicken temperature chart puts the cuts side by side.

A boneless turkey breast has the same 145°F (62.8°C) default, but it is rolled and tied into a roast and timed by its diameter. Duck breast is the exception among poultry breasts: it is served pink, and its default is 135°F (57.2°C).

Time by thickness

Measure the thickest piece through its thickest part, including any bone. Arrange the pieces in a single layer, and if they overlap, measure the whole stack. The setting covers boneless breasts and bone-in split breasts. The times below are for chicken straight from the refrigerator.

Each minimum covers two things: the time for the center to reach the bath temperature, and the total time needed to pasteurize a piece that thick. The calculator uses whichever is longer.

At 145°F (62.8°C), the center of a 0.5 in (1.3 cm) breast heats through in 30 minutes, but pasteurization takes 45 minutes, so the minimum is 45 minutes. At 1.5 in (3.8 cm), both take 2 hours 30 minutes.

These minimums can be longer than the flat ranges many recipes print. Anova's time and temperature guide lists chicken breast at 145°F (62.8°C) for 1 hour 30 minutes to 4 hours without a thickness. That matches a 1 in (2.5 cm) breast, but a 2 in (5.1 cm) breast needs 3 hours 45 minutes because the center of a thicker piece takes longer to reach the bath temperature. Baldwin's rule of thumb is that doubling the thickness increases the heating time about four fold. The calculator's own table shows a smaller step: 3 hours 45 minutes at 2 in is two and a half times the 1 hour 30 minutes at 1 in.

A lower temperature pasteurizes more slowly, so 140°F (60°C) takes longer at every thickness.

A 1.5 in (3.8 cm) breast needs 3 hours 15 minutes at 140°F (60°C). At 150°F (65.6°C) and 160°F (71.1°C) the same breast needs 2 hours 30 minutes, the same as at 145°F (62.8°C), because at those temperatures heating the center is the slower step.

For a thickness between the rows, enter it in the calculator.

The maximum time

At 145°F (62.8°C) the maximum is 4 hours for breasts up to 1.5 in (3.8 cm) thick. It is a texture limit. The chicken is pasteurized at the minimum time, and extra time makes it softer but does not make it unsafe.

For thicker breasts the minimum is already close to or past 4 hours, so the maximum is the minimum plus 1 hour: 4 hours 45 minutes at 2 in (5.1 cm) and 6 hours 30 minutes at 2.5 in (6.4 cm). Expect a softer texture than a thinner breast would have.

How to sous vide chicken breast

The steps below are specific to chicken breast. The guide on how to sous vide follows a first cook from start to finish and covers the equipment.

1. Heat the bath. Set the circulator to the temperature for the doneness you chose.
2. Season with salt and pepper. Baldwin's guide describes an optional brine: a 5 percent salt solution (50 grams of salt per liter of water) in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
3. Bag in a single layer. Use a vacuum sealer, or a zipper-lock freezer bag sealed with the water displacement method. If pieces overlap, measure the whole stack and use that thickness.
4. Cook for at least the minimum time. Keep the bags fully under the water and not overlapping. Crowded or overlapping bags heat more slowly, and the times shown will be too short for them.
5. Dry the chicken. Lift it out of the bag and pat it dry with paper towels.
6. Finish. For skin-on breasts, crisp the skin side in a moderately hot skillet. Anova's guide adds a little vegetable oil and cooks the breast skin side down, and Anova's crispy-skin chicken breast recipe gives it about 3 minutes over medium-high heat. For skinless breasts, a short sear in a heavy skillet with oil that is just starting to smoke adds browning, as Baldwin's guide describes.

The sear is needed for color because the bath is too cool to brown food. Baldwin's guide puts good browning and roasted flavor at around 300°F (149°C).

If you are cooking ahead, the meal prep guide covers chilling and reheating cooked chicken.

Chicken breast from frozen

Frozen breasts can go straight into the bath. The right column of each table above gives the minimum from frozen.

At 145°F (62.8°C) the frozen minimums are:

• 0.5 in (1.3 cm): 1 hour 15 minutes
• 1 in (2.5 cm): 2 hours 30 minutes
• 1.5 in (3.8 cm): 4 hours 15 minutes
• 2 in (5.1 cm): 6 hours 15 minutes
• 2.5 in (6.4 cm): 9 hours

In the calculator, the heat-through time from frozen is 1.55 times the thawed time, and the pasteurization time is longer by a matching allowance. That allowance is the calculator's own rule. No published table covers pasteurizing from frozen.

For the thick breasts, thawing first cuts hours off the cook. The guide to cooking from frozen covers other foods.

Why 145°F is safe and what 165°F means

FoodSafety.gov lists 165°F (73.9°C) as the safe minimum internal temperature for all poultry, including breasts.

That figure is a single reading with no hold time. A bath at 145°F (62.8°C) pasteurizes the chicken only because the chicken is held for the full minimum time shown, so do not shorten it.

The calculator takes its poultry times from two sources: Table 4.1 in Baldwin's guide and, from 136°F (57.8°C) up, the USDA FSIS poultry tables for 12 percent fat. Baldwin's table gives times for at least a one million to one reduction in Listeria and a ten million to one reduction in Salmonella, for poultry that starts at 41°F (5°C).

The FSIS tables are part of the agency's cooking guideline for meat and poultry products, which is written for establishments that produce ready-to-eat products.

The explainer on whether sous vide is safe covers how pasteurization by time and temperature works.

Common problems

The texture is too soft. That is how chicken cooks at 140°F (60°C). Move up to 150°F (65.6°C) or 160°F (71.1°C) for a firmer, more familiar bite.

The meat is stringy or dry. Muscle pushes out more water as the temperature rises. Drop to 145°F (62.8°C) or 140°F (60°C).

The meat is mushy. It stayed in the bath past the maximum. The chicken is still pasteurized, but it keeps getting softer.

The meat is dark near the bone. This applies to a breast cooked on the bone. The calculator's chicken breast setting covers bone-in split breasts as well as boneless ones, and the thickness you enter is measured through the thickest part including the bone. USDA FSIS explains in Chicken from Farm to Table that darkening around bones occurs mostly in young chickens, whose porous bones let pigment from the marrow seep into the meat. FSIS says chicken meat that turns dark during cooking is safe to eat.

The skin is soft. The bath is too cool to brown or crisp skin, so the skillet has to do it. Baldwin's guide says to pat the food dry with paper towels before searing.

The bag floats. Any part of the chicken above the water heats more slowly than the times assume. Push the air out again and hold the bag under.