How Did We Pick The Best Toaster Ovens
We try our very best to review as many products as possible for our guides. In our guide to the best toaster oven we have reviewed a handful of the products, and you will know which have been reviewed from the Homes & Gardens rating underneath the product. We never award a rating or a badge to a product that’s not been tested by a member of our team.
When choosing the other toaster ovens to include in our guide we took into account user reviews, the build material and look, and the number of settings. Other important things we noted were the cleaning instruction and the warranties, which are usually a good indicator of how long the brand will expect their product to last.
Our best toaster oven page is one of the many pages we are working on updating with regular reviews of leading market choices, so this page will be sure to change as we add more of our testing results. For now, we tend to place the toaster ovens we have tried and enjoyed ourselves to the very top of the page, because we can testify to their quality and how well they last in our kitchens.
A Note About Convection
Toaster ovens in the $100â250 price range usually include a convection feature. As with a full-size oven, the convection mode on a toaster oven spins a built-in fan, circulating hot air around the food while speeding up cooking. In toaster ovens, the fan is usually mounted behind the control panel, pushing hot air across the food. However, one model we tested, the Cuisinart, mounts the fan on the ceiling, forcing the air down over the food. Our testing revealed that this innovative design wasn’t enough to overcome inaccurate temperatures.
Our tests also proved that not all convection is created equal: With the fans running, some ovens browned more consistently than others. Should you buy a toaster oven because of the convection marketing hype printed on the box? Convection makes a lot of sense in a full-size oven, where hotter and colder pockets of air are common, but in a smaller toaster oven, the benefits aren’t as noticeable. Our winning Panasonic, which doesn’t offer a convection fan, browned well and was one of the speedier toaster ovens we tested. Cuisinart’s convection setting accelerated some cooking tasks, but the oven also ran hot, burning the cookies we tested . That model aside, a convection feature won’t harm your food, but it’s not a game-changer in such a small cooking appliance.
Nuwave Bravo Xl Air Fryer Toaster Oven
Award:BEST FOR MEAT
WHY WE LIKE IT: Ships with a handy internal temperature probe, making this a great option for perfectly cooking meat and poultry, with an extremely light form factor, at just under ten pounds.
Pros
- Exterior can get really hot during use
- No timer included
The NuWave Bravo XL Air Fryer Toaster Oven is a great choice for amateur chefs who are fearful of overcooking or undercooking meat or poultry, as this model ships with an integrated internal temperature probe, ensuring your favorite dishes are properly prepared. We loved just how light this toaster is, making it easy to move it around the kitchen at will. We also liked that the temperature can be easily adjusted via five-degree increments and that this model boasts a dehydration function, among other useful presets.
Though we liked the powerful quartz heating elements located throughout, this toaster can get extremely hot on the exterior during use, so we advise caution. Additionally, this model does not feature an integrated timer, so youll have to follow along with your phone or via some other method. You might also want to check out our best built-in microwaves buying guide for similar options.
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Most Cooking Functions: Breville Air Convection And Air Fry Countertop Oven
This toaster oven harnesses 1,800 watts of power and 13 preset functions to cook a variety of foods from air-fried wings to slow-cooked chicken. The Breville Air Convection and Air Fry Countertop Oven also features a smart system that uses sensors to determine what temperature should be maintained to avoid cold spots.
What Else We Recommend And Why:
Dash Chef Series 7-in-1 : There’s a lot to like about the Dash toaster oven, but it just wasn’t the best in any category. It has convection cooking/air frying and did an outstanding job baking cookies and pizza. The Dash oven was also one of the fastest to roast a chicken and one of the evenest toasters. Yet, it took a long time to toast, parts of the chicken skin were burnt, the unit took longer than most to preheat, and it had the most significant variance in temperature during our tests.
Emeril Lagasse Power AirFryer 360 : Though we prefer to roast our chicken on a roasting pan, we like that this toaster oven from superstar chef Emeril Lagasse comes with a rotisserie spit. It also has an easy-to-use knob control system with backlit digital display. The Power AirFryer 360 preheated quickly and did a good job with chicken, pizza, and cookies, but it took a long time to toast and was uneven. It also did the worst in our temp variance test.
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Test : Finding Hot And Cold Spots
To find each toaster oven’s hot and cold spots, we covered the racks with white sandwich bread, cutting the pieces to fit them edge to edge. To level the playing field for this test, we decided against using each oven’s toast doneness presets and instead preheated each oven to bake at 350°F , without convection on models that gave us the option. We ran each oven for 10 minutes.
In most of the ovens, the centermost slice of bread browned fairly evenly, but the bread tended to get paler the closer it was to the walls. The Panasonic, which we set to 355°F , achieved the most even browning, save for a pale band nearest the oven door. It’s worth remembering, though, that it’s also the smallest oven of the group, with only enough space for about four slices of bread. The Breville, like a few other models, developed good color on the center column of bread , with less consistent browning near the oven walls. The poorest-performing models barely browned the bread at all, or didn’t apply the heat evenly above and below the slices.
Can An Air Fryer Toaster Oven Replace A Microwave
Possibly, depending on what you use your microwave for. If you mostly use your microwave for reheating leftovers, air fryer toaster ovens are an excellent replacement. Those who use their microwave to warm up coffee, steam frozen bags of vegetables, make popcorn, etc., should consider having both appliances.
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Wattage And Power Consumption
The normal wattage range of these machines is from 1400 to 1800W, so you have to ensure your kitchen electricity outlet is compatible with the cookwares wattage first.
And do not worry too much about its power energy consumption. Air fryers, in general, can cook your food faster than a normal oven they seem not to use enormous energy.
Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven With Large Space
Have you ever considered cooking Thanksgiving dinner in an air fryer? Well if you have, the Ninja Foodi 10-in-1 XL Pro Air Fry Digital Countertop Convection Toaster Oven is the perfect option. Not only can this fit a 4-pound chicken with a basket of vegetables on top, but it can also fit an entire 12-pound turkey. That’s right, if you are cooking a turkey for just a few people , use this air fryer toaster oven.
It has 10 different settings and is also great for baking. Even if you don’t want to cook something as enormous as a turkey, this is still really nice because you can cook entire meals at once thanks to all of its space.
Keep in mind, though, that with space comes weight, and this is not a lightweight oven. It weighs over 30 pounds, so you won’t be moving it around much and probably won’t want to haul it in and out of storage for a couple of holidays a year. But, if you want it for other reasons, like easy meal prep or baking a multi-tier cake, Ninja has the ultimate air fryer toaster oven.
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What Are Todays Most Popular Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven Combination Models
There are many best air fryer toaster oven combination items accessible today for men and women seeking quality and reliability. Every best air fryer toaster oven combination model follows the same essential premise. But they appeal to various users.
Inevitably, certain products will only appeal to particular types of people. Which products are the most popular amongst customers as a whole, you could ask. If you’d want a list, we have one here. Check out our wide range of products that look to be appealing to people of various ages, genders, and places.
How We Chose Our Winners
Through our tests, it became clear that many toaster ovens aren’t up to the task of being good toasters or good ovens. The Breville, our top pick, performed well on all the tests, but it was also the most expensive model we evaluated. The Panasonic is a solid choice for home cooks who value speed or a smaller size, and was a bit less expensive.
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Why Buy A Countertop Oven
If youre left thinking, I already have an ovena microwaveother applianceswhy do I need another? were here to tell you this: dont think of a countertop oven as just another appliance. Because its not. A countertop oven is a total game-changer. At least, the ovens on our list are.
Heres the thing: most of the best countertop ovens arent just one-trick ponys. They bake, broil, dehydrate, air fry, make pizza, proof dough, and more. They cook faster, have smarter features, and in the case of the Brava Oven, they even help make your meals healthier.
So, yes, we think every kitchen should have a countertop oven, especially for home cooks who want an easy and efficient means to get a meal on the table. Bonus: theyre easier to clean, too.
Temperature Accuracy And Consistency Test
This is low-key one of the most important functions for any oven, especially if you plan to do some light baking in it. If an oven can’t hold an accurate and consistent temperature, it makes following recipes far more difficult, and you’ll be forever adjusting and hawking your food to make sure it doesn’t burn. I used thermocouples to read the internal temperature of the oven while it baked for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F. I was able to get an average temp reading for the duration of the bake, but I also watched the thermometer in real time to see how much fluctuation happened during the cook.
The KitchenAid won this test with an average reading of 350 F on the nose and with very little fluctuation. The Ninja , Cuisinart and Breville also did well, although the Breville started off very hot and then came back down. The two last-place finishers were the Crux, which ran hot and the Calpahlon, which ran cold . Both were also the most inconsistent throughout the bakes.
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Test : Temperature Consistency
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
After putting these toaster ovens through the above rounds of testing, we narrowed the field to three finalists: the Breville, the Panasonic, and the Cuisinart. To see how the temperature fluctuated in each model, we ran them for 10 minutes on low, medium, and high heat, charting the temps using an oven thermometer.
On its lowest setting, of 120°F , the Breville reached 120°F and never fell below that mark, though it did rise to between 130 and 135°F for a few minutes before settling back down to just over the target temp. The Panasonic’s lowest temp is quite a bit higher, at 250°F once it hit that mark, it never fell below it and held steady at 255°F . By comparison, the Cuisinart’s “warm” setting, which the company reports is around 180°F , reached around 250°F before falling down to 195°F and then to 170°F . In the end, we concluded that the Cuisinart has a lot of power, but runs too hot.
Air Fryer Xl Power 53 Quarter
The Power Air Fryer XL 5.3 Quart is a kitchen area devices that is so portable and also reliable that you require it in your chaotic day-to-day presence.
Super-hot flow of air
It is run by Rapid Air Innovation which enables your food to be cooked with the 180 to 400 Fahrenheit really hot air flux.best countertop oven air fryer
Good digital panel control
Moreover, this XL power freezer features a great electronic control panel with 7 pre-programmed cooking settings. You can generate a lot of food by just pressing a single-touch button. So your mouthwatering food is performed in a healthy way, with no troubles, with really little or no transfats. Highest and also very successfulair fryer
Power Air Fryer XL 5.3 Quart is presently one of the best-known and also very successful air freezers online market. It has a modern layout. The electronic touch display interface permits you to prepare a range of food and control the unit temperature.
Huge basket of stainless-steel frying This oil-less fryer type also features a massive frying basket of stainless steel. This suggests that you can optimize the cooking surface and also cook more foods as your starving stomach needs. On top of that, Air Fryer XL 5.3 Quart is not an problem due to the fact that its parts are dishwashing machine secure.
Its an affordable air fryer
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Our Toaster Oven Testing Methodology
I tested all of the toaster ovens in this guide. I put each through many objective tests, and during the testing period, my traditional oven sat idle as I relied exclusively on the toaster ovens. The most important factors to consider when testing toaster ovens are ease of use, temperature accuracy and consistency, and how quickly it preheats.
Why Trust The Spruce Eats
This article was written by Brigitt Earley, a freelance writer who has spent the last 10-plus years researching the best kitchen accessories for various digital publications, including The Spruce and Good Housekeeping. From countertop ovens to blenders, shes covered it all. Brigitt also has a culinary degree from The French Culinary Institute and uses a slightly older model of the Breville Smart Oven in her own home. She interviewed Ron Yan, a private chef in NYC who exclusively uses a countertop oven in his own apartment while researching for this roundup.
Each of the ovens featured on this list was either tested in our Lab or by our expert at-home testers.
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How To Choose: Convection Toaster Oven Vs Air Fryer
If youre having trouble choosing which type of air fryer to get, heres how wed decide.
Get the Cuisinart oven if:
- You have room in your kitchen for a larger oven.
- You have a family or larger household, and/or want to be able to cook larger portions of food at once.
- You want to make a variety of foods, such as baked goods, toast, frozen pizzas up to 13 inches, or roast chicken as big as 6 pounds.
- You want the option to adjust the convection fans speed or turn it off completely.
- You dont want to buy extra accessories to get the most out of your appliance.
- You dont mind turning your food to achieve even browning while cooking.
- You like to avoid nonstick coating, which lines the baskets in most pod-shaped air fryers and tends to wear off quickly.
- You want faster cleanup.
Get a pod-shaped air fryer if:
Can I Buy Something Similar Cheaper Elsewhere
One of the most common questions that a lot of customers ask is, Can I buy something similar cheaper elsewhere? The short answer is no. When you are looking for a quality air fryer countertop oven, the most important thing to know is that cheap is not always better. You should carefully research the best air fryer countertop oven before buying and consult the prices on some online sales websites to make the best decision.
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Also Great: Philips Premium Airfryer Hd9741/96
*At the time of publishing, the price was $250.
The Philips Premium Airfryer HD9741/96 is the best pod-shaped air fryer weve tested. Its a far less versatile appliance than the Cuisinart convection toaster oven, but its smaller footprint may make it ideal for tiny kitchens with limited counter space. Smaller households that plan to make only one or two portions of food at a time may also prefer this model. Compared with other pod-shaped air fryers we tested, the Philips cooked food the most evenly, aside from the occasional soggy french fry on average, it cooked faster than most other models we tried and with better results. Like all pod-shaped air fryers, this Philips model isnt good for baking or making toastits fan is too powerful and produces overcooked, irregularly shaped cakes and wonky, unevenly browned toast. But if you dont plan to bake in it, we think its a suitable choice for cooking frozen snacks, smaller portions of meat and vegetables, or certain dishes you want extra crispy, like chicken wings or flautas.
What Is The Return Policy
Return policy is the most important thing to consider regarding the best air fryer countertop oven from a manufacturer. If youre unsatisfied or something goes wrong with your purchase, youll want to know that you have some way to go about it. Additionally, weve compiled a list of highly reputable brands based on their return policies and customer service to help people find and choose the best air fryer countertop oven.
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Are Air Fryers Worth It
Air fryers are probably one of the most divisive kitchen products. For many people, air fryers are worth it. Common reasons why people want air fryers include: reducing their intake of deepfried food, wanting to use an air fryer as an oven alternative since theyre smaller and cheaper, or wanting to use one as an alternative to a dehydrator since air fryers have multiple functions.
However, some people dont like how air-fried food tastes, and some even say that all of those trendy air fryer recipes you find on the internet couldve been done using an oven, according to this WIRED article. At the end of the day, the worthiness of having an air fryer depends on your goals, and if the air fryer youre eyeing meets them.
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