In all my years writing about “food hacks,” there is one that I wish I could eradicate from the internet entirely. It’s the ol’ “Check How Done Your Steak Is by Touching Parts of Your Palm” trick, and it sucks, man. Thermometers are right there, and using one is the easiest, safest way to tell if your meat is “done.”
If you are going to be serious, or even remotely mature, about cooking, you need a thermometer, and it should be digital. The analog dial thermometers are slow and unreliable, and reliability is important when cooking something that could potentially give you food poisoning (like chicken, for example).
No one can glean the internal temperature of a chicken breast or two-inch ribeye with their eyes (or even fingers). A thermometer tells you what’s going on in there, so you can pull your food off the heat when it’s cooked to your liking, and not a moment before. It keeps you safe from microbial enemies, ensuring your food is neither dangerously undercooked nor disgustingly dried out. I’ve discussed the importance of a thermometer at length, but just to re-cap, they’re indispensable when cooking any and all of the following:
- Perfectly cooked steaks, chicken, and more: Gone are the days of worrying about over-cooking that beautifully marbled rib eye or drying out a roast chicken—you’ll always know the exact internal temperature of your favorite meats.
- Tempering chocolate: Tempering chocolate is a lot more complex than simply melting the stuff in a bowl. In fact, it’s a multi-step process that involves heating and cooling to several different temperatures. It can be done without a thermometer, but it’s way, way easier with one.
- Checking ice cream bases: Unless you’re cooking your base sous-vide, it can be hard to know if your custard has reached the right temperature. A good thermometer can help you make sure you make ice cream, not scrambled eggs.
- Bake better goods: Not only can a thermometer tell you when your breads, cakes, and other baked goods are done, it can let you know when you’ve reached the perfect temperature of water for your yeast, rather than relying on your finger, which isn’t as accurate.
- Making candy: Beyond chocolate, a good thermometer can help you craft perfect candies—from marshmallows to lollipops—without having to mess with hard and soft balls.
Honestly though, it’s worth it just for meats. There’s nothing sadder than overcooked meats.
How to pick your first kitchen thermometer
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If you cook any meat at all, you need an instant-read digital probe thermometer. If you make candy or do a lot deep frying, you might also want something that clips on to the edge of your pot, so don’t have to hold a thermometer while stirring a pot of boiling sugar. You want a thermometer that responds quickly, is fairly waterproof, easy to read, and—most importantly—accurate.
Best budget thermometers for the home cook
You don’t have to spend big bucks on a thermometer, especially on your first one. Here are my favorite picks for under $5o.
The best all-purpose instant-read thermometer: ThermoWorks ThermoPop
There is one thermometer that food experts and publications routinely laud as “the best,” and it’s the ThermoWorks ThermoPro. That thermometer will set you back $100, but it has a younger sibling, the ThermoPop, which costs a mere $35.
This cute, colorful thermometer offers “super-fast readings on a huge, backlit 1 ¼-inch, auto-rotating screen,” and boasts “high accuracy to ±1°F (±0.5°C).” It’s powered by a long-lasting lithium battery, for a lifespan of roughly 4,000 hours. It’s also waterproof, so it won’t succumb to steam or break if you drop it into a pot of simmering sauce. It’s easy to use; just stick it in your food, wait two or three seconds, and read the temperature off the dial (with confidence).
The best smoking and roasting thermometer: ThermoWorks Dot Simple Alarm Thermometer
This is a good choice if you tend to be forgetful, are a bit of a control freak, or want to try your hand at smoking meats. Designed to stay in your food throughout a long, extended cook time, it’s not as quick as the ThermoPop, but that’s OK; it doesn’t need to be. This is the thermometer you want in your Thanksgiving turkey. Stick the probe in, set the target temperature (using the only two buttons on the thing), and stick your food in the oven and the display on your oven (it has a magnet inside for this very purpose).
The Dot was designed with commercial kitchens in mind, is splash-proof, and comes with a 4-1/2-inch probe that reads temperatures up to 572°F, with a cable that can withstand temps as high as 700°F. If you want to upgrade later, you can always swap out the probe for something fancier.
Best clip-on digital thermometer: ThermoPro TP510 Waterproof Digital Candy Thermometer
This is a thermometer for candy-makers and deep-fryers. It has a long, eight-inch probe and large, easy-to-read digital display that gives you accurate readouts to a tenth of a degree, and can clip on to pots of boiling sugar and hot oil. It has a wide working temperature range, from 57℉ to 572℉, making it safe for high-temperature cooking.
Best Bluetooth-enabled thermometer: ThermoPro Wireless Meat Thermometer
I don’t know that everyone needs one of these, but I can tell you it makes things a lot easier. My Bluetooth-enabled thermometer is my best friend on Thanksgiving—being able to check on my turkey with my phone quells my anxieties and keeps me mobile (which is key when hosting Turkey Day).
This thermometer has two probes, so you can temp two things at once, like the breast and thigh of your bird, or the temperature of your first pork shoulder, along with the true temperature of your grill (those dials on top of your Weber Kettle are bogus). This thermometer has a 650-foot Bluetooth range, can monitor temperatures up to 572°F with an accuracy of ±1.8°F. You can also set alarms to let you know when your food is at its target temperature, or even five, 10, or 15 degrees shy of that temp, so you never have to worry about ruining an expensive piece of beast or fowl.