In addition to toast and bagels, toaster ovens may also be used to bake a whole chicken, roast vegetables, heat frozen foods, prepare a batch of chocolate chip cookies, broil meat and fish, and melt cheese on small pizzas or open-faced sandwiches. Today, many toasters also come with extra features like air frying, convection baking, and dehydrating. The majority use less energy than a typical oven, which can save costs and keep the kitchen cooler in the summer. With adaptability and multi-functionality in mind, we investigated and tested the best models before compiling our list of favorites.
Best Toaster Ovens
The unsung heroes of small appliances are toaster ovens. They are useful for cooking sides when your main course takes up the entire oven. They can prevent your kitchen from overheating in the summer and, if your living space is too small for a conventional oven, a toaster oven still allows you to cook a range of foods.
We will assist you in locating the machine that best suits your requirements, regardless of the type of use you have for it. We discuss the top manufacturers and customer testimonials to help you find an inexpensive, high-quality product.
Simple kitchen appliances like the best toaster ovens provide more freedom and simplify cooking quickly. Anyone who enjoys baking, cooking, or reheating frozen dishes at home needs to have them. The convenience appliance known as a toaster oven can cook a range of items while using little counter space.
Finding the best toaster ovens amid a vast sea of alternatives begins with deciding which type you want. This compact device may now be customized for size, design, cooking features, and even smart home connectivity. There are gigantic countertop ovens that can nearly replace your full-size oven, freakishly fast models, and toaster ovens that can fry food in the air.
Read on to learn more about the best toaster ovens to buy right now:
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro
Key Features
- Great All-Round Cooking Performance
- Excellent Temperature Accuracy
- Can Air Fry and Dehydrate
- User-Friendly
Overview
For individuals who desire both excellent performance and versatility, the Breville Smart Oven Air offers both counts. It provides superior baking performance and temperature accuracy and has more cooking options than most rival ovens. These abilities include, among others, air frying, dehydration, and slow cooking. It’s simple to operate and use those various tasks due to the huge display screen and straightforward control panel. Toast might seem like an afterthought when compared to the Smart Oven Air’s remarkable list of accomplishments, but the result is fantastic.
The Smart Oven Air’s price and size are essentially its main drawbacks. Due to the additional capabilities, the price is significantly higher than that of the majority of competitors, and smaller counters may feel cramped by its huge footprint. It’s something to think about if you use all the Smart Oven Air offers and have some extra counter space.
Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice
Key Features
- Easy to Clean
- Inexpensive
- Compact and Portable
- Performs Like Some Larger Models
Overview
The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice can compete with larger, more costly ovens when it comes to fundamental features, but it is far more affordable. It’s one of the most alluring small toaster ovens we’ve looked at when we compare its pricing to its overall quality. There are certainly nicer small toaster ovens available, but they are also more expensive. The Easy Reach does good work and won’t break the bank if all you need it for is simple baking and frying.
When we analyze this oven’s general capacity to cook and bake simple items, consistency is an apt way to describe it. It is an excellent option for grab-and-go dinners or after-school snacks because it is so good at reheating leftovers, preparing snacks, personal pizzas, or cooking side dishes.
It is the ideal complement to any RV, student dorm, or studio apartment because it is compact, lightweight, and portable. The Easy Reach’s roll-top door, which lifts and rolls up like an outside grill hood, is one of its best features. As a result, almost the whole interior of the oven is visible, giving the user better top-down access to what is being cooked. Even better, the translucent roll-top door allows you to quickly scan the contents of your baking supplies.
The Easy Reach performs inconsistently yet consistently scores above average on most of our measures. Especially with frozen goods like pizza, it struggles to maintain temperature and frequently runs a touch cooler than desired, perhaps resulting in undercooked products. We frequently had to extend the amount of time we spent cooking, and in some cases, we had to cook things for almost twice as long as was recommended. We were happy with the final results because they were nicely cooked and quite tasty, despite the necessity to babysit items for a little while longer.
Ninja Foodi Digital Oven
Key Features
- Great All-Round Cooking Performance
- Impressive Temperature Accuracy
- Air Fry and Dehydrate Functions
- Flips Up for Space-Saving Storage
Overview
One of the most stunning countertop appliances we’ve seen is the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven. It is a basic, quick-heating oven that can accommodate a 13″ pizza. In this regard, it excels, having produced some of the finest cakes and chicken in our testing. Additionally, it has air fry and dehydration features that we found to be just as efficient as those in specialist air fryers and dehydrating appliances from the goods in our best air fryer review. The practical flip-up feature is the real show-stopper, especially if your kitchen is compact.
The oven’s back has a small foot and hinge, making it simple to flip up when not in use. This storage arrangement still fits under the majority of cabinets and protrudes less than 8 inches from the wall. Naturally, it toasts bread and bagels flawlessly as well.
Other than the price, it’s difficult to find many things to criticize. We doubt anyone would be dissatisfied with the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven if they’re ready to spend a little more for top-notch performance. Although more expensive, it is often comparable in price to other high-performance ovens. It is also far less expensive than many of the oven/air fryer combos that are now available.
Panasonic FlashXpress
Key Features
- Great Toasting Quality
- Fast and Convenient
- Great for Frozen Foods
Overview
Although the Panasonic FlashXpress is a toaster oven, it has many microwaves in its DNA because of its special infrared heating elements, which can practically instantly heat things. These components don’t require preheating and can generate heat that is so powerful that typical cooking durations are typically halved. This oven is for you if you’ve ever desired; your microwave could also make toast. This device can quickly reheat leftovers without the sogginess associated with microwaves and offer that almost perfect crisp on bagels and toast.
The major drawback of rapid heating is that moisture retention suffers. With the FlashXpress, we were never able to produce chewy cookies, only very crispy ones. The device itself has several unusual defaults and a Celsius temperature scale, making it a little odd. Due to this problem, it might not be able to choose the precise Fahrenheit temperature that is called for in a recipe. But the FlashXpress is the ideal countertop partner if your main concerns are finding a quick and practical way to toast, heat leftovers, and prepare frozen items. You don’t mind making some compromises in the baking department.
Breville Mini Smart Oven
Key Features
- Great All-Around Cooking Performance
- Compact
- Great Temperature Accuracy
Overview
If you have a small kitchen yet a passion for baking, the Breville Mini Smart Oven was created just for you. This little model offers almost the same performance and temperature precision as its larger sister but in a more cost-effective and compact design. It heats up remarkably quickly thanks to its diminutive size, giving us the shortest path yet to freshly baked goodies in the event of a cookie emergency. It is also the smallest oven in this study that can yet manage trickier meals and baked goods because of its excellent temperature precision.
The Mini Smart Oven’s lack of capacity is the only drawback we can see, but if you want to save space, you have to accept it. Although some may claim that the price is expensive, we believe that this oven offers more cooking performance per dollar than practically any other option on the market. It is the ideal oven for cooks in small flats or dorm residents who don’t want to give up their baking habits.
Comfee Toaster Oven
Key Features
- Manual Operation
- Space Saver With 2 Rack Capacity
- Easy-to-Use Built-in Timer
- Easy to Clean
Overview
The Comfee is a basic, compact toaster oven that admirably performs the most fundamental toaster functions if you’re searching for one for your morning favorites. Due to its modest size and lack of a convection fan, which circulates hot air, it also maintained heat more consistently than any other oven.
Given its affordable price of $45, the Comfee may be the ideal toaster oven choice for individuals on a tight budget. It has basic manual dials to control the time and temperature, so don’t expect any elaborate cooking settings. However, it’s really durable and evenly toasts four slices of bread in around four minutes.
The rack location is my main issue with this toaster. There is some top-to-bottom unevenness because the tray can only slide near the top or bottom of the oven, not in the middle, but it wasn’t significant enough to worry me. I wouldn’t anticipate using this oven for many years, either. But the compact yet powerful Comfee is a good budget toaster option if you need something quick and don’t want to spend a lot of money.
Cuisinart Digital AirFryer Toaster Oven
Key Features
- Endless Functions
- Superior Operation
- Great Capacity
- Limited 3-Year Warranty
Overview
This toaster oven air fries quickly and requires no additional warm-up time, making it our top pick for air frying in general. It took only 20 minutes to make fries and incredibly crispy chicken wings. It is equivalent to the top free-standing air fryers in terms of power and performance. To avoid unintentional burning when trying for the first few times, simply keep an eye on the food. It air fries foods in a basket that fits atop the broiling pan, preventing grease from leaking onto outdoor surfaces and facilitating simple cleanup. All attachments are dishwasher safe.
The bread was well and evenly toasted when used in a conventional toaster oven. A cake was swiftly prepared and only required to have its little dome cut. Both frozen pizza and broiled steak quickly heated through. The unusual function of dual cooking lets you set the oven for two distinct times and temperatures at once, which is excellent for starting items at a high temperature to crisp up the skin and decreasing it to finish cooking within. Additionally, the oven is programmed with more than 10 settings, five of which are tailored specifically for air frying. The oven also comes with a user manual that is jam-packed with cooking diagrams and recipes.
Final Words
Without taking up much space, a toaster oven may provide a wide range of cooking capabilities to a small city kitchen or a dorm room. These countertop units may still be valuable additions to your collection of kitchen equipment even if you have access to a full-sized oven. They are substantially more energy-efficient than conventional ovens and heat up faster. Given the vast collection of the best toaster ovens available, it may appear that toasters and ovens are all of the same quality, but when you begin to compare the specifics, you’ll discover that this is not the case. We hope that our professional assessment has assisted you in sorting through the possibilities and locating the ideal model for your area, preferences, and price range.
FAQ
What is Better than a Toaster Oven?
In general, a countertop oven has more features than a toaster oven. However, a toaster oven may not be able to reach the same temperatures as a countertop oven, making it suited for quick activities like toasting or reheating. Additionally, they are less likely to include sophisticated features like roast, proof, or dehydration.
Is it Worth Buying a Toaster Oven?
For smaller tasks, use a toaster oven rather than a full-sized oven to prevent overheating your home and energy waste. Additionally, countertop ovens heat up quite rapidly, saving you time in the kitchen! Children may learn to cook independently since countertop ovens are considerably safer to operate than big ovens.
Do Toaster Ovens Use a Lot of Electricity?
Power Usage: According to industry specialists, a toaster oven cooks small meals with around 1/3 to 1/2 less energy than a regular electric oven. When in use, a toaster oven typically uses 1,200 to 1,400 watts of power.
Is Toaster Oven Better than Air Fryer?
Smaller foods can be cooked more quickly and crispily in air fryers. Larger foods can be cooked more efficiently and precisely in a toaster oven. There isn’t a better device.