Best Toaster Ovens for 2024

I got down to prepare dinner all kinds of frequent toaster oven fodder. Aside from the toast exams, the place I checked out every toaster oven’s particular person settings for mild, medium and darkish toast, I used standardized temperature and prepare dinner instances, and adopted the suggestions on the field for no matter I used to be cooking wherever attainable.

Toasting capabilities: Velocity and consistency

Making toast is likely one of the vital duties for a toaster. I imply, it is proper there within the identify. I hauled in a complete lot of bread to see how briskly and evenly every oven made this breakfast and sandwich staple. 

Most low-end toaster ovens use a built-in kitchen timer to set the broiling, toasting and cooking time. Usually, these timers embody a few preset choices for toasting: medium toast, darkish toast and in some instances, a setting for mild, barely toasted bread too. Greater-end fashions with an LCD show will normally allow you to dial into a selected doneness stage once you’re toasting. You may sometimes get about six or seven settings to select from with these, every with preprogrammed toasting instances. That is extra exact than turning a timer knob and value it in the event you’re a stickler for the proper shade of golden brown.

For my functions, I toasted 4 slices of skinny, white sandwich bread in every toaster oven on medium. The purpose of this check was to see how evenly every oven toasts in all areas of the oven and the way well-calibrated the medium toast setting is. Evenness is very essential once you’re making breakfast for a bunch. Ideally, you will need all of them to return out trying as near an identical as attainable.

I additionally examined two items of bread on the bottom doneness setting (mild) and the best (darkish), to see how nicely these presets had been calibrated. After every of the three toast exams, I photographed the outcomes and made certain to let the toaster oven cool to room temperature earlier than testing once more.

For general evenness, the outcomes had been surprisingly uniform throughout the board, except the Cruxgg, which toasted extraordinarily erratically. The Hamilton Seaside, Panasonic’s FlashXpress and Breville Mini Sensible Oven had been among the many prime finishers with largely even cooking and a stable medium coloration. The Balmuda additionally toasted 4 slices of bread evenly.

The FlashXpress additionally had probably the most precisely calibrated settings. The sunshine setting delivered barely there toasting whereas the darkish setting produced correct darkish items of toast with out burning them. The Breville and Balmuda additionally nailed the sunshine and darkish toast cycles once I put them by way of their paces.

Apart from the Cruxgg, which burned the toast, even when set to medium, not one of the doneness presets had been too far out of whack, though toast made within the Hamilton Seaside was, oddly, about the identical coloration for darkish because it was for medium.

Cooking instances

Velocity was additionally an element. I believe we are able to all agree that, on a busy morning, the much less time it’s a must to await toast the higher. I famous the time it took for every toaster to finish a cycle on every of the three settings: mild, medium and darkish.

By way of pure velocity, the infrared Panasonic was the quickest, dwelling as much as its FlashXpress nickname. It toasted to a pleasant medium in simply 2.5 minutes. The Balmuda additionally toasted 4 slices in beneath three minutes, whereas the Breville Mini Sensible oven did it in three. The slowest was the clunky Oster, which took nicely over six minutes to hit medium, adopted by the GE, which took practically 5 minutes and was nonetheless underdone.

Temperature consistency and accuracy

In case you plan to make issues like cookies and pizza or use your toaster to make extra sophisticated recipes, you will need an oven that holds its warmth persistently over time. To check the consistency of every oven, I examined how a lot fluctuation every oven skilled when set to 300 levels Fahrenheit over the course of quarter-hour. I used a RisePro thermocouple thermometer to measure the best temp, the bottom temp and the typical temp over the course of that interval.

All the ovens carried out pretty nicely on this check, except the Cruxgg. The Breville Sensible Mini and Panasonic FlashXpress each held a median temp of 310, simply 10 levels greater than the goal temp which is an effective mark for any oven. The Balmuda Steam oven can solely be set to 350, 400 or 450 levels Fahrenheit, so I ran the identical check at 350 levels Fahrenheit. It additionally did nicely, operating a median of simply 12 levels above the goal temp. 

In a shocker, the Comfee toaster oven fluctuated the least — solely 15 levels from begin to end — putting first within the consistency check, however that’s seemingly as a result of it’s each small and has no convection fan to stir the air up. The Comfee was pretty correct too, though it ran a median of twenty-two levels hotter than the temp I set it for. See full outcomes beneath. 

Testing the convection and bake features

To check every toaster’s energy and skill to prepare dinner extra substantial meals, I baked three pizza bites positioned on a rack in several components of the oven. This was to check how precisely every toaster melts cheese and one other check of how evenly the cooking is unfold out throughout the oven. The field recommends baking a frozen pizza at 425 levels Fahrenheit for 18 minutes, so that is what I did in every toaster oven. 

Along with pizza bites, I cooked a frozen Jamaican meat pie in every oven as directed by the field: 25 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit. This check was designed to see how nicely an oven would prepare dinner a denser frozen meals with out burning the skin. We have all bitten into what seems to be completely browned and beforehand frozen meals solely to seek out it nonetheless frozen within the middle. Not enjoyable.

Within the Jamaican patty check, the entire ovens heated the frozen meat pies by way of the middle, however the Breville and Balmuda produced the very best browning on the outer pastry shell. The hand pie that emerged from the Balmuda Oven (see beneath) was practically overcooked (and maybe it could be for some people), however that is simply how I like mine. 

The FlashXpress simply barely overcooked the patty, whereas the Cruxgg burnt it nicely previous edibility. Whereas all of the ovens produced meat pies that had been scorching within the middle, the least outer browning got here from the Hamilton Seaside toaster and Oster. Not shocking, contemplating each ovens each ran cool within the temperature consistency and accuracy check.

Toaster buttons and show

I discovered the toaster ovens with digital shows best to program because you dial into your most popular stage of doneness on a six- or seven-point scale slightly than guesstimating with a timer knob. My favourite show was on Breville’s Mini Sensible Oven, which was easy and simple to make use of with dials that precisely modify the cooking time for each doneness and variety of slices. This mannequin additionally has an “a bit extra” button and a cool-down mode to cease cooking sooner. I additionally preferred the Panasonic FlashXpress’ show which is barely easier than the Breville with fewer particular modes however extra packages for particular gadgets like one for frozen waffles, frozen pizza and even hash browns. 

In reality, I do not discover toaster oven cooking packages very useful, and I hardly ever use them. Since each model, be it frozen pizza, waffles or mozzarella sticks, fluctuate in dimension and density, it is usually finest to observe the directions on the field. 

My least favourite show was on the Oster, which had one-dimensional backset buttons and a wonky digital display screen that gives little or no info. The buttons would usually not react and required a forceful push, generally two. The super-cheap Comfee Toaster has guide dials and no show. Guide dials are tough to set precisely each for temperature and time. They usually make a ticking sound as nicely, which may be annoying.

The simplest toasters to scrub

This was much less of a cooking check and extra of a cleansing check, however one which’s close to and expensive to my coronary heart. Each toaster oven comes with an aluminum baking sheet with a nonstick coating, however some are a lot simpler to scrub than others. As a result of these sheets are largely fitted to the oven, you are form of caught utilizing that one till you change the toaster completely, so it is good after they come clear and do not stain or gather gunk after just some classes. 

After the pizza bites completed cooking, there was inevitably some spilled sauce and cheese left on the sheet. I allowed the pan to chill sufficient to deal with with out gloves after which scrubbed it vigorously for one minute utilizing a sponge, scorching water and Dial dish cleaning soap. The simplest baking sheets to scrub belonged to the Breville Mini Oven (which is black, in order that in all probability helps), the Panasonic FlashXpress and the $43 Comfee toaster. 

The trays that got here with the Hamilton Seaside and GE Toaster remained probably the most stained after a minute of cleansing, with the remainder falling someplace within the center.