I was never what most people would consider a "fancy" chef, but I was a very exacting one. Between the diners I first cooked in and culinary school, I learned many ways to judge the degrees of meat and poultry, but each left room for interpretation. If you leave such things open-ended, expect the results to vary with the person cooking. By the time I opened my first restaurant, instant-read thermometer technology had progressed. They were already useful in spot-checking chicken on the grill, but now they had the responsiveness and accuracy that allowed me to use them to temp every burger, steak, or piece of fish coming out of the kitchen.

This simple innovation upped my exacting-ness because there was zero room to interpret results — I could scientifically prove a steak was medium rare within seconds. I could cook by numbers, using a digital thermometer for pre-roasting meat and poultry and monitoring braises and an instant-read version for made-to-order dishes. These tools bolstered my reputation but also saved me money by minimizing plates sent back for over or under-doneness.

In civilian life, I use instant-read thermometers on the grill in the backyard, on the stove, and in the refrigerator (really). To help guide you to the one for your needs, we brought several of the best instant-read thermometers into our test kitchen.

The Best Instant-Read Thermometer
ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE

The ThermaPen ONE has aced several rounds of testing for its responsiveness and accuracy, making it our favorite instant-read thermometer (and our favorite meat thermometer). It's comfortable to hold and has a large, backlit display that’s easy to read, as it rotates depending on how you position the body. In our most recent tests, we got consistent results over and over, with one degree of variance from our controls, which, given ThermoWorks’ claim of accuracy within one-half degree, falls within that threshold when rounding numbers. It also reported its results in two seconds or less.

I have a ThermaPen ONE in my home kitchen and have used these thermometers professionally in my restaurant kitchens. I like them not only for their speed and accuracy but also because they’re built to take a beating without affecting their performance.

The ThermaPen comes to life when you extend the probe and sleep when you fold it back into the body, and as such, they have extensive battery life. I’ve never had to replace the single AAA battery in any of the ThermaPens I’ve bought. The backlighting isn’t a substitute for a well-lit grill, and making it brighter would come at the expense of battery life, though some might find it a little too dim. The ThermaPen ONE is by far the most expensive model we’ve listed here, but its accuracy, speed, efficiency, and longevity add up to make it worth the price.

How to Use an Instant-Read Thermometer
What do you use an instant-read thermometer for?
Use an instant-read thermometer whenever you need a quick, accurate snapshot of the current temperature of food. Most people understand their utility for grilling or roasting meats, but you can also use them in sauce-making where you need to know the temperature, like when tempering custard, or for scalding milk in cheese-making.

Most people think of using a thermometer to test how hot something is, but you can also use an instant-read thermometer to measure if something is cold enough, like whether your ice cream base is ready to spin. There’s also a place for instant-read thermometers in food safety, checking if the food you’ve set out on a buffet is outside of the microbial danger zone, or if the braised meat you just labored over (and which is always better when you let it cool in the cooking liquid overnight) is cool enough to safely store.

How far do you insert an instant-read thermometer?
Upon examining the five instant-read thermometers in my kitchen (I test cooking products for a living, OK?), all share a common trait. Their probes have a thinner, needle-like tip to make insertion easier that broadens about an inch from the end. Ideally, you should insert the thermometer’s probe far enough to cover that narrow end that houses the sensor. Expanding a little from that, you should insert the probe until the tip is in the middle of the food, provided the piece of food you’re testing is a uniform thickness. Because nature doesn’t often create uniform food, take a chicken thigh, for example, you should forgo the center as a target and insert the probe into the thickest part of the food, away from any bones, which are fantastic heat conductors and will give you an inaccurate reading.

How We Tested Instant-Read Thermometers
We tested each instant-read thermometer to measure two key points: their accuracy and their response time. To evaluate these, we put them each through three tests.

Sous vide test: We set up an immersion circulator (the heat-control portion of sous vide cooking) to bring a water bath to 134°F. We then tested each thermometer's response time and temperature, repeating the test three times. In these tests, we noted any temperature variation from the immersion circulator and any deviations in the instant-read reports. We then averaged the instant-read temperatures and response times.

Boiling water test: To test higher temperature thresholds, we performed the same tests as the sous vide portion, using water at a full, rolling boil. Again, we recorded and averaged the response times and temperature readings.

Baked chicken test: With this test, we sought to put the thermometers through a more practical application. We baked chicken thighs and tested each thermometer's usability. First, we checked for proper doneness at 165°F and then judged them on how easy they were to insert into the chicken without completely removing the baking pan from the oven and how easy they were to read in the oven’s lower-light environment.

At the end of these practical tests, we rated each thermometer on value to retail price. We continued using them for six months, checking in after two to see if any performance issues arose after longer-term use.

Other Instant-Read Thermometers We Recommend
Kizen Digital Meat Thermometer

The Kizen delivers the features you need at a fraction of the price of our favorite, albeit with some design sacrifices. This thermometer registered within one degree of accuracy in our sous vide testing and dead-on in our boiling water test, with a three-second response time. The Kizen has a fold-out probe that started to stick during our long-term tests, but that’s not a disqualifier at the price. This thermometer had a large, backlit display that functioned well in the limited light of the oven. We found the body design a little awkward to hold when inserting it into chicken thighs to get a reading without removing the baking pan from the oven.

Cuisinart CSG-200 Infrared and Folding Grilling Thermometer

With this Cuisinart thermometer, you get two heat-measuring needs met in one device. In addition to being an instant-read, it's a point-and-shoot infrared thermometer, which you can use to assess the surface temperature of your grill or skillet before cooking and then use the probe to spot-check your food’s internal temperature.

The instant-read thermometer performed very well in our boiling and sous vide testing, giving spot-on accuracy in about two seconds. There were a few nit-picky issues with this thermometer, in that the display doesn’t rotate to orient with the direction you’re holding the base, the backlighting could be brighter in a low-light oven, and the infrared thermometer isn’t as easy to aim as its dedicated competitors. But, you get two good thermometers for far less than the cost of buying them separately, so we consider that a win.