The feasibility of predicting pH, color, shear force, and sensory characteristics of chicken breasts deboned at 2, 4, 6, and 24 h postmortem by visible/near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) in the 400 to 1850 nm region was determined. Prediction of physical attributes of Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) color values (L*, a*, and b*), pH, and shear force had better accuracies than those of individual sensory attributes. Calibration and validation statistics for shear force and sensory traits indicated that visible/near infrared models were not significantly improved for cooked muscles compared with predictions based on raw muscle characteristics. On the basis of predicted shear values from the partial least squares (PLS) model, breast samples were classified into "tender" and "tough" classes with a correct classification of 74.0% if the boundary was set at 7.5 kg. The model developed from measured shears using soft independent modeling of class analogy/principal components analysis (SIMCA/PCA) showed nearly the same classification success.