This experiment was conducted to determine the differences in meat quality (cooking loss and shear force), descriptive sensory characteristics, consumer acceptance, and whole muscle proteomes between normal and Pale, Soft, and Exudative (PSE) broiler breast meat. Male Hubbard × Cobb 500 birds (n = 1,050) were raised in commercial houses. Prior to harvest, a sample of the broilers (n = 900) were subjected to short-term stress (38 °C for 2 h), and the remaining broilers (n = 150) were maintained at control conditions (21 °C for 2 h). From the stressed and control condition broilers, breast samples were characterized by pH24 and L*24 as normal (pH24 5.8-6.2, L*24 45-55) or PSE (pH24 5.4-5.7, L*24 55-65). Normal chicken breast meat had lower shear force values than PSE meat (P < 0.05). Based on sensory descriptive analysis, normal cooked chicken breast was more tender and juicier than PSE breast meat (P < 0.05). Consumer sensory analysis results indicated that 81% of consumer panelists liked normal breast meat whereas 62% of the panelists liked PSE breast meat. Whole muscle proteome profiling identified fifteen differentially abundant proteins (P < 0.05) in normal and PSE meat samples. Actin alpha, myosin heavy chain, phosphoglycerate kinase, creatine kinase M type, beta-enolase, carbonic anhydrase 2, proteasome subunit alpha, pyruvate kinase, and malate dehydrogenase were over-abundant in PSE meat whereas phosphoglycerate mutase-1, alpha-enolase, ATP-dependent 6-phosphofructokinase, and fructose 1, 6-bisphosphatase were over-abundant in normal meat. In addition, normal and PSE broiler breast meat were sampled from commercial plants and evaluated for meat quality attributes (pH, color, cooking loss, and tenderness) and their whole muscle proteome. Normal chicken breast meat had lower shear force values than PSE meat (P < 0.05). Proteome analysis revealed five differentially abundant proteins (P < 0.05) between the normal and PSE chicken breast samples. Glycolytic enzymes (beta-enolase and fructose-bisphosphate aldolase C) were over-abundant in PSE breast meat. Myofibrillar protein (myosin heavy chain) was over-abundant in PSE breast meat. In conclusion, results indicated that differences in proteome abundance could be related to the meat quality differences between normal and PSE breast meat.