DoneChartHow long, at what temperature, for the cut and weight you actually have.

Oven Times

Minutes per pound by cut, and what changes at each temperature.

Oven time is set by three things, and only one of them is on the recipe: the thickness of what you are cooking, the temperature difference the oven is working against, and how far your own oven sits from the number on its dial.

Weight is not on that list, which is why minutes-per-pound rules work for one shape and mislead for every other. A pork tenderloin and a pork loin roast of the same weight differ by nearly three times in oven time, because one is two inches across and the other is four. Heat travels inward from every surface, so time scales with roughly the square of the thickness.

Why dropping the oven 50°F does not add a fixed number of minutes

The rate heat moves toward the centre is proportional to the gap between the oven and the temperature you are cooking to:

t = t400 × (400 − target) ÷ (T − target)

Chicken thighs pulled at 180°F take 1.29 times as long at 350°F as at 400°F. A beef roast pulled at 125°F takes only 1.22 times as long across the same drop. Same oven, same change, two different answers — which is why no blanket "add ten minutes" rule survives contact with a real menu.

The mistake nearly every chart makes

They print the serving temperature in the column labelled "cook to". Food keeps cooking after it leaves the oven — 3 to 5°F on a small cut, 10 to 15°F on a turkey — so cooking to the serving number lands you a full stage past it.

Every page here gives the pull temperature and the serving temperature as two separate numbers, because they are two separate numbers.

What no formula can see

Your oven's real temperature. Domestic ovens commonly run 15 to 25°F away from the dial and cycle around a setpoint rather than holding it, and a convection fan changes the answer again. An oven thermometer costs a few dollars, settles the question in one evening, and corrects every timing you will ever use afterwards.

Until then, treat the low end of any range on this site as the moment to start checking rather than the moment it is done.

6 articles

How long to cook Whole Duck at 375°F

Whole Duck at 375°F
89–113minutes
5 lb · pull at 165°F internal, serves at 175°F after resting
Whole Duck — 5 lb, pull at 165°F300°350°400°450°101 minLower oven, longer time — steeply so because the target is 165°F
Start checking atthe low end — an oven running hot gets here first89min
Expected timefor 5 lb at 375°F101min
Pull temperatureit climbs 10°F more while resting165°F
Serving temperaturewhat a chart without a pull column would have told you to cook to175°F
Same dish at 400°F1.12× longer at 375°F90min
Resting timeuncovered, on a rack15–20min

Notes

  • Whole Duck. The thick fat layer under the skin has to render before the skin can crisp, which is why duck is often started low and finished hot rather than roasted at one temperature. Scoring the skin without cutting the meat is the step that decides the result.
  • Time here comes from the temperature difference the oven is working against, not from a minutes-per-pound rule: t = t₄₀₀ × (400 − 165) ÷ (T − 165). Because the target for this poultry is 165°F, dropping the oven from 400 to 350 multiplies the time by 1.27. A dish with a lower target changes far less — which is why one blanket "add ten minutes" rule cannot work.
  • Pull at 165°F, not 175. Carryover adds about 10°F after it leaves the oven, and almost every chart online prints the serving temperature in the column labelled "cook to". That single confusion is why food cooked carefully to a chart arrives one stage past where it was meant to.
  • Thickness governs time far more than weight does — heat travels inward from every surface, so the centre of a piece twice as thick takes roughly four times as long. Two items of identical weight and different shape are not the same job.
  • Domestic ovens commonly run 15 to 25°F away from the dial and cycle around it rather than holding steady. An oven thermometer settles this once and changes every timing you will ever use; until then, treat the low end of the range above as the moment to start checking rather than the moment it is done.

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