Maybe you don’t have a toaster oven because you’ve been under the impression that it can only be used to heat bread and nothing else. You may wonder how you ever lived without a modern toaster oven once you discover its ability to compete with your main oven.
You’re not limited to making bread in a toaster oven. They may be used to bake a chicken, broil meat and fish, heat frozen foods, create tiny pizzas, and melt cheese for open-faced sandwiches or a snack.
Most modern toaster ovens are more energy-efficient than a conventional oven, saving you money and keeping your kitchen cooler during the warmer months. They also have several cooking settings, such as convection baking and air frying. Top models were examined, and our picks were established, keeping adaptability and flexibility in mind.
1. Best Overall: Oster Large Digital Countertop Oven
Things We Dig
- Spacious
- Numerous culinary possibilities
- Integrated lighting
Things We Dislike
- The top becomes really heated while usage.
Is there anybody else who thinks you should do this? The Oster Countertop Oven was a top selection by both Wirecutter and This Old House. 12
The opinions of purchasers. Over nine-tenths (91%), or 10,600+, of Amazon reviewers gave this product four or more stars.
In this oven, you may toast six pieces of bread, bake a 12-inch pizza, roast a bird, or bake a pan of brownies. Only one rack is provided, however it can be adjusted to either of two heights to accommodate a wider variety of dishes. This may accommodate a 9 by 13-inch pan, but it must be a handleless variety. Your 9 by 13-inch Pyrex dish is too long, but a metal baking pan with straight sides should fit just well.
The adaptability of the toaster oven is a major selling point for many people. Bake, convection bake, broil, toast, pizza, defrost, and warm are some of the preprogrammed cooking options. The built-in features will recommend a cooking time and temperature, but you may modify these settings to suit your recipe. The toasting feature has a wide range of customization options, from lightly toasted to deeply toasted.
An interior light allows you to monitor the cooking process, a feature that is said to be uncommon in other toasters.
2. Best With Air Fryer: Cuisinart 1800 W 6-Slice Brushed Silver Toaster Oven and Air Fryer
Things We Dig
- Multi-functional
- A more efficient use of counter space than conventional air fryers
- Rapidly prepares food
Things We Dislike
- The engine is running a little hotter than the desired temperature.
There’s no better way to make crispy wings or potato wedges without making a huge mess, but standalone air fryers take up a lot of room on the counter. This air fryer toaster oven also requires space on your countertop, but it outperforms the average air fryer in many ways, so you may find it indispensable.
This model can hold up to three pounds of wings or six pieces of bread. Even a regular frozen pizza, measuring 12 inches in diameter, will fit when it’s time for supper.
Most reviews give it great marks for being so multipurpose, as you can use the many settings to make everything from air fried chicken breasts to baked goods like muffins, cookies, and biscuits, as well as roasted meats, roasted vegetables, and toasted bread.
The Cuisinart comes in a variety of colors and styles to complement your existing homewares.
3. Best Capacity: Breville BOV900BSS Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro with Super Convection
Things We Dig
- Quick to heat up and prepare meals
- Versatile
- Capable of both dehydration and air-frying
Things We Dislike
- Pricey
We suggest the Breville Smart Oven Air Convection Toaster Oven if you want a toaster oven that can handle many items at once and are ready to pay a bit extra.
It has 13 settings (including a dehydrator and air fryer), two large oven racks, an enamel baking pan, a nonstick pizza pan that is 13 inches in diameter, and a broil rack.
This gadget will allow you to perfectly cook a wide variety of foods, including frying, roasting, baking, and toasting. It can fit a 5-quart Dutch oven for slow-cooking a roast or pot of chili and can toast up to nine pieces of bread or a 14-pound turkey.
Spending a little more on this top-rated Breville toaster oven is well worth it for dedicated home cooks and professional chefs, since hundreds of reviewers have said that it “far surpasses” other toasters.
4. Best Smart: June Oven
Things We Dig
- Appreciates a broad range of culinary options
- The app has video recipes that can be viewed on the go.
- Users may make their own apps.
Things We Dislike
- Expensive
The June Oven is a smart oven—”scary smart,” according to our tester—that does a lot more than just set a timer, making it ideal for people who just can’t seem to get the hang of choosing the right cooking time and temperature, busy people who want to streamline cooking, and creative cooks who want to try new methods and recipes. It includes a built-in camera and recognition algorithms that let it to distinguish between different types of bread and modify its time and temperature accordingly, making it ideal for toasting anything from English muffins to burger buns to a stack of tortillas.
Customers who are new to the kitchen will find the oven’s vast range of culinary programs, user-friendly recipe software, and intuitive manual controls very useful. Our reviewer made a delicious air-fried chicken parmesan with the help of the app, which managed the oven temperature, reminded her when to flip the chicken, added the sauce and cheese, and removed the dish when it was done. It does a lot more than just toast, with options to bake, roast, broil, toast, dehydrate, air fry, slow cook, reheat, and keep warm.
While we did our testing on a June Oven from the second generation, the third generation is currently on the market and solves one of our reviewer’s few complaints. The top heating components in the upgraded June Oven are now protected by protection rails.
5. Best Budget: Black+Decker 4-Slice Toaster Oven TO1313SBD
Things We Dig
- Compact
- with a reusable crumb tray
- Quite a few toasters to choose from
Things We Dislike
- The power cable is a little short.
This toaster oven is perfect if you don’t need an oven replacement but still want to toast bread and cook pizza without breaking the bank. You can fit a 9-inch pizza in there, and it can toast up to four pieces of bread simultaneously.
This may be used for a variety of cooking and warming purposes. It includes a variety of browning levels for toasting, and a 30-minute timer allows you to leave food in the oven for a longer period of time.
The oven’s ease of use has been a hit with buyers, and its space-saving design has been especially well received by people who live in apartments with small kitchens. Thanks to the crumb tray’s detachability, cleanup is a breeze. You may use the included baking sheet, broiling rack, and toasting rack right out of the box.
6. Best for Easy Cleaning: Black + Decker Countertop Convection Toaster Oven
Things We Dig
- Rapidly preheats
- Small and light-weight
- Include a baking sheet.
Things We Dislike
- Over time, a door’s spring may get overstretched.
These presets include cookie, pizza, frozen snack, and potato cooking options, similar to those found on other oven models. Options to switch on or off the convection fan accompany bake, broil, toast, and bagel settings. A huge digital display indicates the time and temperature, but it isn’t lighted, making it difficult to see in dim conditions.
The oven has two rack placements and can accommodate a 12-inch pizza owing to a rounded bump-out on the rear. After 120 minutes, the timer will sound a single alarm and turn off the oven.
The crumb tray may be removed from the outside for simple cleaning and to prevent crumbs from being lodged in the door.
The door spring might wear down faster if the oven isn’t set such that the door rests on the counter while it’s open, as mentioned by a few reviewers.
7. Best Space Saving: Breville Compact Smart Oven Toaster Oven
Things We Dig
- Conspicuously little environmental impact
- Roomy for a small oven
- A nonstick coating protects the inside walls.
Things We Dislike
- It could take a while to get the desired temperature.
This smart oven from Breville, recognized for its high-quality appliances, is especially convenient since it is smaller and more space-efficient than the brand’s traditional countertop ovens. Small as it is, a regular 12-inch frozen pizza or 6-cup muffin pan will fit. It can accommodate up to four pieces of bread at once during toasting.
The oven is preprogrammed for eight various tasks, including toasting bagels, baking bread, roasting meat, broiling vegetables, baking pizza, and reheating food.
Nonstick coating on oven walls makes cleanup a breeze, even if food drips or spatters inside.
Several reviewers remarked how much easier it was to use the oven than their standard oven. However, some people have complained that preheating the toaster oven to the desired temperature might take a while.
In Search of the Perfect Toaster Oven?
Capacity
Smaller toaster ovens are more convenient for apartments and studios because of their compact design. Capacity is less of a concern if all you want to do is create more toast than can fit in a standard two-slice toaster.
Bigger ovens take up more room on the countertop, but they can handle more food at once. Make sure the toaster oven can take standard baking pans and has enough depth to accommodate bigger pizzas if you plan on using it often to cook up frozen pizza and snacks. Khoo says that if you want to bake items that rise a lot (like cakes or soufflés), you should make sure you have enough of room in the oven.
Size
You should take precise measurements of the area you have available on your counter top before going to the store to acquire a new countertop oven. Make sure the place you choose has access to electricity and that the cable is long enough to reach the socket.
Controls
Think on what kinds of automated settings and controls you find most appealing. Touchscreens, knobs, dials, and buttons are all possible options for toaster oven control.
Take note of the toaster oven’s automated shut off features and how it alerts you when cooking time is up. If you want to be sure your meal is done without letting any heat go, switch on the oven light instead of opening the door.
Extra Capabilities
While even the most basic toaster oven can bake, broil, and toast, more advanced models provide a range of culinary options that may compete with your regular oven and other kitchen gadgets. There are toaster ovens that can broil a steak, produce a rotisserie chicken, air fried chicken wings, and even dehydrate jerky. Toaster ovens that have the convection feature are also increasingly common.
Bagels, frozen pizza, biscuits, proving bread dough, and slow cooking are just some of the foods that may be cooked automatically in the ovens. These options are great for eliminating the need for trial and error when determining the ideal cooking time and temperature, but only if you actually utilize them.
Accessories
The majority of modern toaster ovens come with both a baking pan and a crumb tray that can be easily removed for cleaning. Not many toasters come with baking trays, pans, or racks, so it’s wonderful to have these with your new appliance. In addition to standard fare like pizza stones, broiler trays, and rotisserie spits, some ovens also come with more specialized add-ons.
FAQS
Please explain the basics of toaster oven usage.
Given that the outside of a toaster oven may get rather warm to the touch and emits quite a deal of heat, it is important that it be utilized in a well-ventilated location. When it’s time to prepare a meal, you’ll either preheat the oven or throw the ingredients in cold. Check your toaster oven’s handbook to see whether preheating is necessary.
To pre-heat or not to pre-heat the oven? That is the question. For standard baked goods like meat, bread, and cookies, it’s best to preheat the toaster oven to the appropriate temperature before placing the food inside. This permits the food to start cooking as soon as it is put into the oven. Cooking time will increase when using a cold toaster oven to prepare raw food. Keep in mind that preheating is not required to toast a couple pieces of bread or warm a platter of leftovers, although doing so may increase the cooking time.
After placing your food on the toaster oven’s baking rack or tray, you may adjust the cooking time according to a recipe, pick the desired degree of browning for toasting, or use a cooking preset.
Toaster oven aluminum foil use?
Depending on the model, a small square of aluminum foil may be used in most toaster ovens. If you want to be sure that using foil is okay with your toaster oven, read the manufacturer’s instructions. When using foil, keep it away from the oven’s hot element, the walls, and the crumb tray. Most toaster ovens will allow you to use a tiny sheet of aluminum foil without an overhang to line the baking pan or tent a dish.
Toaster oven-friendly foods?
Toaster ovens are versatile enough to be used in place of regular ovens for cooking a wide variety of items. Products like as:
Sliced bread, bagels, and English muffins toast well in toaster ovens. Most toaster ovens can brown six slices of bread at simultaneously, as opposed to the traditional two or four.
You can cook grilled cheese, open-faced melts, and quesadillas in a toaster oven, among other things. While your toaster oven preheats, you may put together a grilled cheese sandwich using bread, butter or mayonnaise, and cheese as normal. The sandwich should be baked for a few minutes on one side before being flipped and baked for a further few minutes. If you’re making grilled cheese or a melt in the toaster oven, keep a tight watch on it so the bread doesn’t burn and the cheese melts.
Traditional baked items may be cooked in a toaster oven, including cookies, cakes, muffins, brownies, and quick breads. The method, temperature, and time required are identical to those of conventional baking.
Although standard cake and loaf pans may be too big for a toaster oven, the baking process should be the same other than the size of the pan used. Find smaller cake and loaf pans, ideal for your toaster oven’s capacity.
Reheating leftovers in the toaster oven requires just an oven-safe plate. Reheating pizza is possible as well. One or two pizza slices, depending on their size, should fit, and the cooking time shouldn’t exceed a few minutes. Pizza dough burns easily, so keep a watchful eye. When the cheese on your leftover pizza has melted, it’s ready to consume.
Frozen appetizers like mozzarella sticks and french fries may be heated in a toaster oven if you follow the package’s instructions. The quantity you can place on the baking tray, however, will be less than what you could have fit on a standard baking sheet.
Chicken, steak, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, and fish fillets are all examples of lean meats that benefit from baking, broiling, or roasting. Arranging bacon pieces on a baking sheet for the toaster oven yields guaranteed nicely cooked bacon every time.
Veggies: A toaster oven is great for roasting potato wedges and traditional baked potatoes, and it may also be used to cook vegetables in small baking pans.
When was the last time you cleaned out your toaster oven?
A clean oven is a safe oven, as Khoo puts it. A smaller oven has the added benefit of being easier to maintain. Make sure the toaster oven is totally cold before cleaning it. Once you’ve finished using the oven, take off the crumb/drip tray and use a pastry brush to clean any crumbs that may have gotten stuck in crevices or on the door. Most crumb/drip trays are dishwasher safe and may be cleaned with warm, soapy water to get rid of greasy or splattered remnants of food. Baking sheets and racks should be taken out of the oven and washed after each usage.
A moist cloth may be used to thoroughly clean the inside and outside of the toaster oven. When cleaning a nonstick oven, always use a soft cloth or sponge; scouring pads and bristle brushes may scratch the coating and ruin the oven.
Baking soda and water may be used to remove stubborn oil that has been baked on. Make a paste with baking soda and water, apply it to the affected region, and leave it on for as long as possible, preferably overnight. Then scrub (you may need to use some force) with a damp towel.
