My dream kitchen has a minimum of two ovens. With a kitchen renovation not being in my near future, I turn to a more, shall we say, affordable alternative: the toaster oven. Not only can I approximate my double oven dreams with a toaster oven, but a good one is a true multitasker—capable of toasting, roasting, baking, broiling, and sometimes even air-frying.
Serious Eats last reviewed toaster ovens in 2017, so it was high time for a re-test. I put 19 toaster ovens through the ringer (and blew more than one power fuse in the process) to see if our previous top picks were still the best-of-the-best—and how they compared to newer models. These top toaster ovens are reliable, versatile, and, of course, deliver beautifully browned toast.
The Winners, at a Glance
The Breville Smart Oven Pro won our previous toaster oven review. After re-evaluating, I still think it’s the top choice for power and versatility since it heats up quickly and browns food evenly. In addition to delivering lovely toast, its large capacity makes it useful for everything from making frozen pizza to baking a small sheet of cookies.
The winner of our air fryer toaster ovens review, this model excelled in this testing as well. Its exterior is handsome and it performed exceptionally. Its air fryer basket slides into grooves on the toaster oven's walls, which allows for all-over browning (some models have baskets that are placed on trays instead).
The Breville Smart Oven Compact Convection offers plenty of baking power with a significantly smaller footprint. It’s still large enough to bake a 10-inch frozen pizza and can brown up to four slices of bread at a time.
The Balmuda Steam Oven Toaster is undeniably charming. It’s sleek, sturdy, and compact. This model is more specialized than its counterparts—it’s designed to make toast (and bread), and it does this very well. Although it’s too small to prepare whole frozen pizzas, the Balmuda browns bread perfectly, and its steam function is capable of reviving even the driest croissant.
The Tests
- Toast Test: I prepared a single slice of toast in each toaster oven to see how quickly and evenly it browned the bread. Using the medium-dark setting, I timed the process and checked the toast for burnt spots or underdone areas.
- Toast Heatmap Test: To check for hot spots, I filled each oven with as many slices of bread as their rack fit. I toasted the bread to medium-dark and observed how evenly each piece turned out.
- Pot Pie Test: I baked a single-serving pot pie in each oven, evaluating the finished product for burnt edges or cold spots.
- Frozen Pizza Test: I baked a frozen pizza in each oven, checking for even browning and crust texture.
- Broiler Test: To test the broiler function, I used each oven to melt a slice of cheese onto a piece of bread. I timed how long it took to get bubbly, golden-brown results, and evaluated the finished product for burnt spots or unmelted areas.
- User Experience Tests: Throughout testing, I evaluated how easy each toaster oven was to use, including how intuitive their controls were.
What We Learned
Digital Timers Eased Anxiety
The toaster ovens I tested featured a variety of controls and displays. Some were clear and easy to use, while others were imprecise and frustrating. Our favorite models, like the ones from Breville and Calphalon, had digital displays that clearly showed the cooking time and automatically switched off after cooking. The digital displays are easy to set—users can manually toggle the time by turning a dial or pushing a button, or select a preset and observe how many minutes are programmed (adjusting as desired). Models without a display screen, like the Our Place Wonder Oven and Galanz Large 6-Slice True Convection Toaster Oven, used dial timers with a few numbers for benchmarks and notches in between. It was much more difficult to select an exact time with these controls. Furthermore, these models didn’t automatically switch off after the time was up—if you don’t keep a close eye on them, it’s easy to scorch your breakfast.
Framed Doors Were Safer
Keeping an appliance that rapidly heats up to 450ºF out in the open can be a little risky. Toaster oven exteriors—including the top and the door—become extremely hot during use, and bumping into them can cause one big ouch. The doors should always be opened via the handle, but it’s easy to touch the edge of the door by mistake when closing it. Imaging using your microwave—do you close it with the handle every time you use it, or do you slap at the door to shut it quickly? Making this mistake with a toaster oven is a way to singe your fingers, but a well-designed door makes this easier to avoid. The higher-end products, like Breville, Cuisinart, and Balmuda ovens, have aluminum or stainless steel-framed doors, which provide insulation.
We Liked Toast Toasty
It’s right there in the name—a toaster oven should be able to make good toast. Many of the models I tested were able to brown bread, but some ovens took significantly longer to achieve medium-dark results. The average time for all of the ovens was around four minutes, but a couple of minutes can make a big difference when it comes to rushed morning breakfasts. The Panasonic churned out the fastest piece of toast—our bread was pleasantly brown and crispy after just over two-and-a-half minutes. Other models, including the Hamilton Beach, took more than six minutes to brown a single slice.
The Criteria: What to Look for in a Toaster Oven
First off, consider your space and your cooking needs, and choose a model that will fit comfortably on your countertop. If you mostly plan on making toast, don’t hesitate to choose a pared-down appliance with simple functions. That said, baking, roasting, and air fryer options are also useful and add to an appliance's versatility. At its most basic, though, a toaster oven should toast (and bake) evenly. It should also have intuitive controls and an automatic timer, so you're not playing a guessing game of how long to toast a slice of bread.
The Best Toaster Ovens
What we liked: This toaster oven can bake, broil, and toast with the best of them. It performed well in all of my tests—it delivered a golden slice of toast in four minutes, produced a nicely cooked pot pie, and demonstrated even heat distribution. Its generous capacity makes it well-suited to serve as a backup oven for daily cooking tasks.
What we didn’t like: At almost 20 inches wide and 16 inches deep, this is a big ol’ appliance that will hog counter space.
Key Specs
- Dimensions: 18.9 x 15.9 x 10.9 inches
- Interface: Digital display
- Functions: Toast, bagel, bake, roast, broil, pizza, cookies, reheat, warm, slow cook
- What’s included: One oven rack, 12 x 12-inch enamel baking pan, 12 x 12-inch enamel broiling rack, 13-inch non-stick pizza pan, removable crumb tray
What we liked: With a sleek, dark gray exterior, this is one attractive toaster oven. We've named it our favorite air fryer toaster oven, but it's also great at toasting and baking. Its timer is precise, too—it includes seconds—and its interior light is bright and helpful, especially for monitoring doneness. Its air fry basket is standalone, meaning you don’t have to rest it on another rack or tray.
What we didn’t like: The temperature can only be adjusted in 25-degree increments (like 350˚F and 375˚F), so it’s not a great choice for precision baking. Its cooking function doesn't automatically kick on after pre-heating is finished.
Key Specs
- Dimensions: 11.6 x 18.7 x 15.8 inches
- Interface: Digital display
- Functions: Air fry, bagel, bake, broil, defrost, dehydrate, keep warm, pizza, roast, toast
- What’s included: Air fry basket, durable nonstick baking pan, wire rack, and removable crumb tray
What we liked: This smaller model offers many of the features of the Smart Oven Pro without claiming as much countertop space. It’s large enough to toast four pieces of bread at once, and its digital display is user-friendly and accurate. It provides even heat, too—the pot pie came out golden brown and piping hot, and the heat map test didn’t reveal any hot spots.
What we didn’t like: While the full-sized Breville includes a stainless-steel frame, the compact version features a solid glass door with exposed, hot edges.
Key Specs
- Dimensions: 16.5 x 15.5 x 10.2 inches
- Interface: Digital display
- Functions: Toast, bagel, bake, roast, broil, pizza, cookies, reheat
- What’s included: 10 x 10-inch enamel baking pan, 10 x 10-inch enamel broiling rack
What we liked: The Balmuda toaster oven is beautiful and compact. Its streamlined functionality made it easy to use, and it excelled at evenly browning pieces of toast and broiling perfectly melted cheese. It is a steam oven, so you can use the included measuring cup to add a small amount of water through an opening in the top, allowing the oven to inject steam. This function can effectively revive stale bread or pastries, creating toast with a crispy exterior and a moist, bread pudding-like interior.
What we didn’t like: The small footprint is great for saving counter space, but it also gives it a more limited capacity; it can only toast two slices of bread at a time. During testing, I had to cut a 10-inch pizza in half to fit it on the rack. While it’s easy to use, the Balmuda uses analog controls that are less precise than a digital menu.
Key Specs
- Dimensions: 12.6 x 14.1 x 8.2 inches
- Interface: Analog display with dials for time and temperature settings
- Functions: Artisan bread mode, sandwich bread mode, pizza mode, pastry mode, oven mode
- What’s included: Rack, baking pan, external crumb tray, measuring cup
The Competition
- Panasonic Toaster Oven FlashXpress: I loved the compact size of this appliance—it saved counter space, and was just large enough to accommodate a 10-inch frozen pizza. Although it tested well, this model’s control panel left me wanting more. The cook time maxes out at 25 minutes—not quite long enough to finish baking a pot pie—and with no countdown clock, you might need to set a backup timer to keep track of what’s cooking.
- Our Place Wonder Oven: Don’t let the color options charm you—cheap-feeling materials and imprecise controls placed this oven near the back of the pack.
- Galanz Large 6-Slice True Convection Toaster Oven: This massive oven produced uneven toast—by the time the top of the slice was medium-dark, the bottom was barely golden.
- Breville BOV800XL Smart Oven Convection Toaster Oven: The Breville Smart Oven Convection Toaster Oven performs well and is easy to use. Its digital control panel is clear, the door is framed for safety, and the non-stick external crumb tray is easy to clean. During testing, this model was almost impossible to distinguish from the Breville Pro. They’re similar sizes and prices and offer almost identical functions. The primary difference seems to be that the Pro model includes an oven light, which was just enough to nudge it into first place. That said, if you don’t care about an oven light, this is also a great toaster oven.
- Hamilton Beach Professional Digital Convection Countertop Toaster Oven: This was the slowest model I tested—it took nine minutes to successfully brown four slices of toast, and the final results were uneven.
- DeLonghi Livenza Countertop Oven: The DeLonghi overly toasted bread and inconsistently browned pot pie.
- KitchenAid Compact Countertop Oven: KitchenAid's analog toaster oven cooked toast, pizza, and pot pie unevenly.
- Oster Manual French Door Oven: The Oster just couldn't toast toast well. It's also giant (and currently out of stock).
- Cuisinart Toaster Oven: This oven ran far too hot and had a ceiling-mounted fan that contributed to this.
- Krups Stainless Steel Deluxe Convection Toaster Oven: Without a spring-loaded door, the Krups' door slammed downwards. It also both burned and undercooked frozen pizza.
- Hamilton Beach Digital Countertop Toaster Oven: This inexpensive Hamilton Beach toaster oven performed poorly at its namesake task.
- Black+Decker 4-Slice Toaster Oven: The Black + Decker is too small to be super versatile and runs hot at times.
- Cuisinart Chef’s Convection Toaster Oven: This model overcooked toast. Sad.
- Black+Decker Convection Toaster Oven: Unfortunately, this toaster oven ran too cool.
- Oster Toaster Oven / Digital Convection Oven: The Oster was inconsistent. It was either too hot or too cold—never just right.
FAQs
Is it worth buying a toaster oven or a toaster?
This comes down to your budget, needs, and space. A toaster oven is certainly the more versatile appliance, but if you’re working with limited room—or if you only need to toast bread—there’s nothing wrong with a pop-up toaster. Our top pick, however, can bake cookies, roast potatoes, make frozen pizzas, and more—it's like having a second oven.
What's the difference between a toaster oven and an air fryer toaster oven?
Toaster ovens and air fryer toaster ovens are the same size and perform virtually the same functions, with the chief difference being air fryer toaster ovens have an air fryer function and a perforated basket that aids in all-over air circulation (read: better browning).
How do toaster ovens work?
Not every toaster oven is made the same. Our top pick, the Breville Smart Oven, functions like a miniature convection oven complete with multiple heating settings and modes. It has heating elements at the top and bottom of the oven and a fan located at the back of the oven that blasts hot air all around.
How much does a toaster oven cost?
After testing, it became clear: Pricier toaster ovens (specifically those from Breville and Calphalon) performed better and were generally easier to use. Our favorite toaster oven, from Breville, costs about $270 at the time of writing.
Why We’re the Experts
- Madeline Muzzi is a freelance writer, editor, and video producer.
- She has written many reviews for Serious Eats, including wine decanters and countertop ice makers.
- For this review, we drew on previous findings and all in all tested 19 toaster ovens, using them to make toast, broil, and bake chicken pot pie and frozen pizza.
- We've recommended the Breville toaster oven for about seven years and stand by its longevity and quality.
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