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We bouth 10 of the most compelling toaster ovens on the market to compare head-to-head in our testing lab. We used these machines to bake hundreds of cookies and dozens of meatballs and toasted countless bagels and slices of bread. After using each oven, we were able to evaluate cooking capabilities and general user-friendliness in a side-by-side manner.
Pulling the top spot in this review is the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven, which consistently showed great cooking performance and includes additional functions such as dehydrating and air frying. Toaster ovens are usually pretty compact, but if you are really short on space, the Breville Mini Smart Oven is our favorite small option.
If you just want a slice of toast in the morning and don't need the numerous functions of a toaster oven, check out a slot toaster. If you prefer a different method for heating your food, we've also tested top-rated microwaves. Whatever you're getting up to in the kitchen, our list of kitchen appliances outlines all our favorite tools.
Editor's Note: We updated our toaster oven review on December 5, 2024, to provide additional information on some of our favorite models.
Early in our tests, our testers declared the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven as “one of the most impressive countertop appliances we've ever seen.” It is a simple, quick-heating oven large enough to handle a 13" pizza. In our previous round of testing with this oven, it baked cakes and chicken with ease, and during our latest tests, it excelled with frozen pizzas, tater tots, and meatballs, crisping and browning these items to just the right level. It also dehydrates well and can air fry with the best of them (we also pitted this model up against our air fryer lineup).
Our testers noted that the Foodi “toasts bread and bagels like a champ.” Best of all, it's hundreds of dollars less expensive than the one model that scored slightly higher, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. While the Breville is easier to use and has a larger interior, the Ninja has a similar cooking performance, better toasting performance, and much faster preheating, reaching 350 degrees over 3 minutes quicker in our tests. In addition, our tests showed that the Ninja is over a minute faster at toasting (4.83 minutes for the Breville vs the Ninja's 3.75 minutes for a medium-shade piece of toast).
The Foodi can flip on its end to save counter space.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
The pièce de résistance is the convenient flip-up feature, particularly if you have a smaller kitchen. A small foot and hinge on the back of the oven allow you to flip it upright when not in use. This storage configuration can still fit under most cabinets while sticking less than eight inches from the wall. If you have a particularly small kitchen or a lot of appliances already taking up counter space, this is a great toaster oven to consider. It also offers you two-in-one capabilities if you want to ditch your air fryer. Just note that you're not going to be roasting any whole chickens in this model, as it's shorter than ovens like the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro.
On the downside, its short profile makes it harder to clean, and while it costs much less than a Breville, it is still not cheap. If you're just after toasting capabilities and want an even smaller footprint, check out the Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice, which is about half the size and price. It offers comparable toasting performance to the Ninja, but its cooking performance with frozen items wasn't as good. Overall, we love the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven and recommend it as our favorite overall toaster oven.
The Nina Foodi was capable of producing many great foods in our tests, from toast to tasty tater tots to a 13" pizza. It also had a high degree of temperature accuracy.
Pizza Pan
Broiling Rack
Roasting Pan
Air Fry/Dehydrate Basket
Dedicated Bagel Setting
Yes
The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro delivers on both fronts for high performance and versatility. It offers more cooking functions than competing ovens and provides field-leading cooking performance and respectable temperature accuracy in our tests, with the lowest temperature discrepancy in our measured temperature accuracy assessments — this model could maintain an average temp of within 5 degrees of the 350-degree target.
We found it easy to use the large display screen, and the control panel is intuitive for navigating this oven's many functions, like slow cooking, dehydrating, and air frying. This appliance can fit a pizza up to 13 inches, and in our cooking tests, it browned a frozen pizza evenly with bubbly and melty cheese. It also crisped and brown tater tots nicely, which was a task other models struggled with in our evaluations. This oven can accommodate 9 pieces of toast at once, but if you pack it full like we did, it doesn't brown them all evenly. Still, the toast from this model had a great texture, and it toasted a bit more evenly when you toast fewer slices at once.
Handy labels on the window help guide where your tray should be for each function, taking the guesswork out of your cooking process.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
If you have the budget for a pricier, multi-function toaster oven, this one is certainly our top pick. It's significantly more expensive than the other toaster ovens on this list, but you get what you pay for. It scored perfectly with regard to ease of use, thanks to thoughtful touches like a magnet that helps pull the tray out partway when you open the door and markings denoting the level where each tray cooks what sundries best (shown in the image above).
The only real downsides to the Smart Oven Pro are its price and size. The extra features push the price well above that of most competitors, and the large footprint can make it feel like a bit of a space hog on smaller countertops. If you take advantage of all this appliance has to offer and have some spare counter space, it's worth considering. If you want to save some space and money, check out the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven, which saves you a few hundred bucks and has the ability to flip on its end to tuck under your cabinets, freeing up counter space. The Ninja scored comparatively in our cooking tests and actually scored better than the Breville in our toast tests. Another money-saving option is the Nuwave Bravo XL Pro, which has a similar sleek look to the Breville models and speedy performance, but our tests showed a much lower temperature accuracy for the Nuwave; it ran an average of over 50 degrees hotter than our test temp of 350, while the Breville consistently only ran about 5 degrees hot.
Regarding basic cooking and baking, the Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice competes with larger, more expensive ovens, yet it comes at a fraction of the cost. When we weigh its price against its overall quality and cooking abilities, it's one of the most appealing compact toaster ovens we've tested. Sure, there are better compact models like the Breville Mini Smart Oven, but they also come with a higher price tag.
The Easy Reach performs well and won't break the bank. In our testing, this model produced consistent and reliable results. It has great temperature accuracy, staying within an average of 5.1 degrees of our test temperature of 350. It produced respectable frozen pizzas, cookies, and meatballs and could brown tater tots nicely (although we found their interior a bit dry). The Easy Reach also produced good toast, with a 4-minute toasting time on medium, but the shade settings on the dial are somewhat confusing to understand. Our favorite unique feature is the Easy Reach's roll-top door, which lifts/rolls up, similar to an outdoor grill hood. This exposes nearly the entire oven interior and gives the user more top-down access to cooked items. The roll-top door is clear, so you can instantly check on all your goodies while they're heating up.
The Easy Reach 4-Slice is light and compact and has decent all-around performance at a great price.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Despite performing above average in most of our test metrics, the Easy Reach isn't perfect. It only fits a 9" pizza. Other models, like the combination oven/slot toaster Hamilton Beach 2-in-1 31156, could make toast better and faster. Still, we firmly believe this is the best value toaster oven we tested, as it scored quite well in all our metrics and is a fraction of the cost of the premium ovens.
If you are in the market for an affordable toaster oven for quick-and-easy meals and snacks, this one is for you. The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach is a perfect choice for grab-and-go meals or after-school treats. It's lightweight, portable, and easy to clean, thanks to its removable door. Most importantly, it takes up very little counter top real estate. We think it would make the perfect addition to any RV, college dorm, or studio apartment.
The Easy Reach showed a high degree of temperature accuracy in our testing. This video montage also shows how the roll-top door on this model is removable for easy cleaning.
The Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N' Bake is our favorite large-capacity toaster oven when it comes down to bang for your buck. This appliance can toast, warm, broil, bake, or air fry all in one. In fact, when we made cookies in it, it landed a nearly perfect and the best (by far) score. It also cooked up some delicious meatballs for us.
The best part about this toaster is how much interior space you have for cooking. You can fit a 9" x 13" baking sheet or an 11" pizza on one of three racks. There are dials for the temperatures and cooking functions, as well as for the timer and toast-shade selection. A red light indicates that it's on and in use. We also found that the crumb tray is easy to clean with exterior access.
The Black+Decker produced our favorite cookies of all the ovens tested.
Credit: Lesley Robinson
This large toaster oven will consume your counter space, but it won't consume your wallet. If you have the space for it, we recommend it to anyone who frequently uses the toaster oven or who would make use of the capacity. Those cooking for friends or family more frequently than heating up some snacks may prefer this toaster oven to some smaller-capacity options on this list.
The main disadvantage to the Extra Wide Crisp N' Bake is also its biggest perk— its large size. All of the dials feel a little bit outdated, too, compared to some other toaster ovens like the Breville models that feature fancier interfaces and digital displays. Plus, there's no bagel preset, and while you can toss in eight slices of toast at once, there are only six shade options, and our tests showed inconsistency with the shade of the toast pieces when we toasted eight slices at once. The timer is loud, and it's also worth noting that you can't select the temperature when Air Fry mode is on. If you are looking for a similar option, the Nuwave Bravo XL Pro is quite spacious, and it fits nine slices of toast with 10 different shade settings and has 100 preset recipes with fun accessories. Or, if you're looking for better cooking and toasting performance and you're willing to pay for it, the Ninja Foodi is our favorite model.
If you're short on space but big on baking aspirations, the Breville Mini Smart Oven was designed just for you. This space-saving model offers similar performance and temperature accuracy to its big sibling, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro, but in a more economical and compact package.
The small size heats up remarkably fast, reaching 350 degrees in just 1.7 minutes in our test, providing the fastest route from emergency cookie craving to fresh-baked goodness. This was the fastest to heat up in our test group by far. For comparison, the larger Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro took 5.4 minutes to reach 350 degrees — nearly four minutes longer. Thanks to the Mini Smart Oven's stellar temperature accuracy (both Breville models were highly accurate, temp-wise), it is also the smallest toaster oven we tested that can still handle the more finicky meals and baked goods.
This smaller model saves countertop space while still fitting four pieces of toast.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The only gripe we have with the Mini Smart Oven is the small capacity. It can still fit an 11" pizza, but it's a tight squeeze. However, that's a tradeoff you have to make when saving space (unless you opt for the Ninja Foodi, which can make a 13" pizza and flips on its end as a counter storage solution). It is a top-notch choice for cooking enthusiasts in small apartments or dorm dwellers who don't want to give up their baking habits. However, if you're looking for convection capabilities, the Mini Smart Oven machine doesn't have them. We recommend the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven or the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro if you're looking for a combo toaster oven/air fryer.
This smaller model from Breville had great temperature accuracy and respectable cooking and toasting performance.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
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How We Test Toaster Ovens
To find the best toaster ovens, we researched more than 100 before purchasing the very best at full price — we never accept any free samples from manufacturers, allowing us to stay true to our goal of providing unbiased expert reviews. Each oven is subjected to nearly two dozen individual tests. We made more than 1000 slices of toast, over 100 frozen pizzas, dozens of cookies, and bag after bag of tater tots, comparing each in side-by-side taste tests. Our cooking tests make up the most heavily weighted metric at 30% of the total score, followed by toasting for 25% of each oven's overall score. We test each appliance using different kinds of food: frozen pizza, cookies, tater tots, and meatballs. To test temperature accuracy, we used two professionally calibrated thermometers. We then assessed each toaster oven's overall user-friendliness and ease of cleaning. Our testing results can help you find the perfect countertop cooker, no matter your needs or budget. For more information about our testing process, take a look at our full in-depth testing article.
We tested and scored each model across 4 precisely weighted metrics:
Cooking tests (30% of overall score weighting)
Toasting tests (25% weighting)
Ease of Use tests (25% weighting)
Temperature Accuracy tests (20% weighting)
We tested countless toaster ovens for their performance, ease of use, and other factors.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Why Trust GearLab
Review Editor Lesley Robinson is a Food Science graduate of California Polytechnic State University with a passion for cooking. Her educational background, combined with her extensive experience in quality assurance and food safety, allows her to bring a unique perspective when it comes to the products we test, including the latest toaster ovens.
AnnaMarie Houlis is a gear guru and journalist who has spent much of her decade-long career in journalism reviewing gear, from outdoor gear to lifestyle items and home appliances, with inclusivity and accessibility in mind. As both a writer and consumer, she is committed to digging into the details to share the whole story and empowering others to make more informed decisions.
Not just for toast, these small countertop ovens are capable of baking everything from sweet treats to frozen chicken wings.
Despite the simple design of most toaster ovens, not all are created equal.
Analysis and Test Results
Each toaster oven was tested across various scenarios with different types of food, allowing us to offer the details you need to make the right decision for your toasting goals and budget.
What's the Best Value?
Generally, we've discovered that higher cost often equates to better performance in the world of toaster ovens, but that correlation isn't linear. For example, inexpensive Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice turned in an above-average performance in most of our testing, excelling with its temperature accuracy and toasting performance and earning it our choice for the overall best value buy. The Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N' Bake is another model that performs quite well for its low price tag. And the Panasonic FlashXpress offers great value in a similarly low price range. However, it is a specialty product that excels at quick reheating but not tasks like baking, meaning it's less versatile. Possibly the best value-per-dollar, the Breville Mini Smart Oven offers top-tier performance at a relatively reasonable price, though it does come with a smaller capacity.
When we compare it's price with it's ability to compete with more expensive models, we feel the Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice is a great buy.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Cooking Performance
Two primary advantages of using a countertop model are speed and energy efficiency. You can quickly heat single-portion meals or small batches of confections without wasting energy and time heating an entire full-sized conventional oven. We assigned it significant weighting (30%) in our scoring scheme and made sure to heat a representative spread of prepared foods during our testing, including frozen pizza, cookies, meatballs, and tater tots. We evaluated each model's ability to cook evenly without drying or undercooking meals. This goal led us to look for the ideal crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside cookies and juicy, tender meat.
The Ninja Foodi performed incredibly well in all cooking tests, including our cookie-baking test.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The four foods we used to judge cooking performance—pizza, cookies, meatballs, and tater tots—were each evenly weighted to calculate our cooking performance score. The chart below highlights each oven's results with all four types of food.
Cooking Performance Tests
Product
Frozen Pizza
Cookie Dough
Meatballs
Tater Tots
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro
9
7
9
9
Ninja Foodi Digital Oven
9
7
8
10
Nuwave Bravo XL Pro 20855
9
5
9
9
Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N\' Bake
4
9
8
6
Breville Mini Smart Oven
6
8
5
7.5
Cuisinart TOA-70
6
5
6
9
Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice
6
6.5
7.5
6
Hamilton Beach 2-in-1 31156
4
8
7
6.5
Panasonic FlashXpress
5
7
6
6
Black+Decker 4-Slice TO1313SBD
5
6
4
3
Each food was scored on a 1-10 scale.
The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven and the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro scored at the top of this metric. The Ninja was slightly better at tater tots, crisping them to perfection and scoring a perfect 10. The Breville was slightly better at meatballs. Just behind these models was the Nuwave Bravo XL Pro, which scored similarly to the Breville and Ninja for every food group except cookie dough. The cookies produced by the Nuwave were crispy all the way through, a bit crumbly, and darker on the bottom. If you don't think you'll be baking cookies in your toaster oven often, this likely won't matter to you. It performed great with our frozen foods and it has a similar look to the Breville for a fraction of the cost.
Testing batch after batch of tater tots in the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. This model made great tots.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Breville Mini Smart Oven also scored well in this metric. It tended to leave pizzas a bit softer and doughier than we would have preferred, but this can generally be fixed by extending the cooking time.
The Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N' Bake performed great for its price but was not stellar overall. It melted and browned the cheese on our pizza, but the bottom of the crust stayed very pale in color and didn't brown or crisp up at all. It produced a chewy, soft crust. If you like a soft crust, no biggie, but this was disappointing for fans of crispier crusts. The Black+Decker oven produced above-average cookies and meatballs, both with excellent texture, but the tater tots it produced were not crisped to our liking.
For the price, the Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N'Bake created good pizzas, but the crusts were a little soft.
This toaster was a tight fit for an 11" pizza, but it works.
The Black+Decker's pizza (left) vs. the Breville Mini Smart Oven's (right). Neither oven crisped the crust as much as we'd like, but the Mini Smart Oven was able to brown the bottom more than the B+D.
The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice, Hamilton Beach 2-in-1, Panasonic FlashXpress, and Black+Decker 4-Slice ovens can only accommodate a 9" pizza, which is a rare size unless you're making it from scratch. Pizza size aside, most of these models didn't do so hot with the 7" frozen pizzas we tested in them.
The Panasonic FlashXpress uses infrared technology to heat the oven up quickly.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
If you tend to eat a lot of frozen food and don't like the inherent sogginess of prepping such foods in a microwave, the Panasonic FlashXpress is a fantastic choice. However, the FlashXpress and its unique two infrared heating elements should be considered a super-fast reheater rather than a proper oven. Its design gives it a particular niche in which it excels, such as quickly making toast and bagels, heating most leftovers without creating sogginess, and prepping things like frozen burritos.
A snapshot of some of just a few of our cooking and toasting tests.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Toasting Performance
If a toaster oven doesn't excel at preparing its namesake breakfast item, it will lead to some disappointing mornings. To avoid such a catastrophe, we made hundreds of slices of toast in our ovens. We paid detailed attention to the toast's evenness, both across the face and between the top and bottom sides of the slice. We also stuffed every oven chock-full of bread from wall to wall, then ran a standard toast cycle. This “toast map” elucidated if the oven had any cold spots or started bleeding heat towards the edges.
Toasting Tests: Multiple Pieces
Product
Evenness
Color
Panasonic FlashXpress
9
10
Cuisinart TOA-70
8
10
Black+Decker 4-Slice
8
9
Hamilton Beach 2-in-1
8
8
Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice
7
9
Ninja Foodi Digital Oven
7
9
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro
6
8
Breville Mini Smart Oven
6
6
Nuwave Bravo XL Pro
6
3
Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N\' Bake
4
4
The Panasonic FlashXpress and the Cuisinart TOA-70 scored best in this category. In fact, the FlashXpress was the only model we tested that could make toast and bagels as fast, if not faster, than a traditional slot toaster. It also had no cold spots on our toast map. The infrared elements can also easily be used directionally, so it has no trouble toasting the cut sides of bagels without browning the backsides.
The FlashXpress makes toast super fast, hence the name.
The FlashXpress produced some of the best toast in our tests in the fastest amount of time (2.5 minutes!)
When we did our toast map test, filling the ovens wall-to-wall with toast, we found small cold spots at the very extreme edges of some ovens, while some models left edge slices looking sadly neglected. The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven did fairly well in this metric. The bagel mode made some of the most evenly toasted bagels we've seen. When toasting bread, it also achieved decent consistency, although the pieces packed into the back of the toaster were more done than the pieces at the front.
The Foodi is among the leading toaster ovens when it comes to toasting performance. However, you can see that the toast at the front (by the door) was slightly less done than the toast in the back.
Credit: Lesley Robinson
The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice only toasts four slices of bread or two bagels at a time; however, for its small size and small price tag, we were also pleasantly surprised at this mini-me's ability to consistently produce acceptable toasted items. We should also give a shout-out here to the Hamilton Beach 2-in-1, which is a unique appliance that combines slot toaster functionality with oven capabilities and was consistently able to produce some of the best toast in our review.
This toaster fits two slices of toast through the top like a traditional toaster.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
We know not everyone needs to cram an entire toaster oven full of half a dozen (or more) slices of toast. Sometimes, you're just making one or two slices. When we tested toasting performance with a single piece of toast in each appliance, many had an easier time achieving even toasting and browning. We've charted the results of our single-piece toast tests below.
Toasting Tests: Single Piece
Product
Evenness
Color
Nuwave Bravo XL Pro
8
8
Hamilton Beach 2-in-1
8
8
Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N\' Bake
8
7
Cuisinart TOA-70
9
6
Ninja Foodi Digital Oven
7
8
Panasonic FlashXpress
8
7
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro
7
7
Breville Mini Smart Oven
6
7
Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice
6
7
Black+Decker 4-Slice
6
3
In addition to subjective assessments of toasting quality, we measured each model's speed. Again, the Panasonic FlashXpress stood out not only in this test but also in pretty much any other speed test we threw at it.
The Panasonic FlashXPress and Breville Mini Smart Oven made toast the fastest. This is likely due to the FlashXPress's infrared heating elements, which require less of a preheat time, and the Mini Smart Oven's smaller interior, which takes less time to warm up. The Hamilton Beach 2-in-1 and Ninja Foodi also made a medium-done piece of toast in under four minutes. The longest toast time belongs to the Black+Decker 4-Slice, at 5.3 minutes.
The Cuisinart TOA-70 scored amongst the best in our toasting category.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Ease of Use
Toaster ovens should be versatile. However, versatility often comes with complexity. The interface and features help unlock the products' versatility if the design is user-friendly. We appreciate appliances that allow us to select settings for toast, bagels, frozen food, baking, or broiling. They must allow you to choose the proper temperature and cooking duration for each function. Models with intuitive controls and thoughtful interfaces make navigating these options a breeze, but clunky interfaces can turn meal prep into a frustrating experience. We had everyone in our office dial each model with various settings to determine which were easy to use and which may find you in anger management seminars. We also assessed how easy removing and cleaning each crumb tray was. Below, we've charted each toaster oven's scores in our three Ease of Use subrankings: Interface, Capacity, and Ease of Cleaning.
East of Use Ratings
Product
Interface
Capacity
Ease of Cleaning
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro
10
10
10
Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N\' Bake
6
10
10
Breville Mini Smart Oven
9
7
10
Nuwave Bravo XL Pro 20855
6
10
10
Cuisinart TOA-70
7
7
10
Ninja Foodi Digital Oven
8
8
5
Hamilton Beach 2-in-1 31156
7
4
8
Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice
5
5
9
Black+Decker 4-Slice TO1313SBD
6
6
6
Panasonic FlashXpress
6
6
6
We found that companies either go out of their way to design an intuitive and delightful user experience or keep things disappointingly spartan, with very few models occupying a middle ground. The Breville models, the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro, and the Mini Smart Oven sit in the delightful category. These toaster ovens feature easy-to-read digital LCD screens and have crumb trays that are easy to remove and clean. The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro earned a perfect score in each of our Ease of Use sub ratings. We loved this model's thoughtful design features, intuitive interface, and large interior.
The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is easy to use and clean.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Black+Decker Extra Wide Crisp N' Bake is simple to use, but we wish its control panel were a bit more specific. It features dedicated knobs for cooking function, temperature, and time. However, these knobs are labeled with very small writing, and there is no LCD screen displaying exactly what's been selected. It's pretty hard to tell if you've chosen your exact desired temperature and time. However, this oven scored at the top of the pack for its large internal capacity and easy cleaning.
The knobs on the Black+Decker weren't as user-friendly or precise as the higher-end ovens' digital interfaces.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Nuwave Bravo XL Pro 20855 scored similarly to the Black+Decker here. It features a dial as well as button controls with an LED display and 100 cooking functions and presets. However, it's not super intuitive, which means making the most of all those accessories and capabilities can be complicated. Its spacious interior makes it a breeze to clean, though.
The Nuwave Bravo XL Pro 20855 features 100 cooking functions and presets to heat it up depending on what you're cooking.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Part of our ease of use score is capacity. Models that can easily accommodate larger baking sheets and pizzas scored higher. The chart below details the maximum pizza size each toaster oven can hold.
The Black+Decker 4-Slice TO1313SBD and Panasonic FlashXpress tied for the lowest score in this category. The FlashXpress's controls are generally straightforward, with dedicated buttons for each preset (annoyingly, it does not have a bagel function; you'll have to settle for normal toast settings). We found that using the device can be a bit tricky. You can't make any selections until you press the power button, and it will just fire up on its own if you wait too long to make your selection, which can force you to shut everything off and start over. The temperature settings are converted from Celcius, so you likely won't be able to select the exact temperature your recipe calls for (for example, you can't set it to 400˚F, but you can set it to 390˚F).
The Panasonic FlashXpress is fast, but often results in food that is crispy on the outside and undercooked on the inside.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Temperature Accuracy
The most surprising test results came from the temperature accuracy test. We were taken aback to find that half the ovens routinely differed from the indicated temperature by 20˚, with some having discrepancies as high as 50˚. It seems that achieving the correct temperature is the most basic function of an oven, and we felt those inaccuracies were unacceptable. As we dug into this issue a little further, we found it a pretty divisive topic in the baking world. You can find many articles peddling the idea that oven temperature is a relatively uncontrollable variable, so we should stop worrying about it because of that. However, you can find an equal number of articles extolling the virtues of accurate oven temperature and the fact that a change of just 25˚F can have a noticeable impact on the quality of baked goods. Both camps have a point. Having to obsessively check your oven with a thermometer will be a hassle and could take some (or all) of the fun out of baking.
Keeping in mind that a more accurate oven will most likely yield better, more predictable results, we measured temperature accuracy with two different NSF-approved oven thermometers and a Extech EA11A-NIST thermocouple thermometer. In our testing, we set each oven to 350F and monitored the thermometers for 30 minutes, logging the temperatures at 6-second intervals. This test was repeated three times, and we averaged the results. Below, we have charted the average temperature deviation from 350 degrees from our temperature accuracy testing. Products closest to zero, in the middle of the chart, were the most accurate.
The most accurate toaster ovens in our tests were the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro and the Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice. The Smart Oven ran an average of 5.2 degrees hot, while the Easy Reach ran an average of 5.1 degrees cool. The Ninja Foodi also had a good showing here, running an average of 7.3 degrees hot. Among the least accurate models, the Black+Decker toaster ovens ran consistently around 30 degrees colder than 350F, while the Nuwave Bravo ran a whopping 53.1 degrees hot.
The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach was one of the most accurate models in our test and could heat up 350 in just under two and a half minutes.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
We've charted each model's accuracy by percentage in the chart below. The closer to 100%, the more accurate the temperature.
Half the group was at least 96% accurate, including both Hamilton Beach models, both Breville ovens, and the Ninja Foodi. The least accurate toaster oven in our tests was the Nuwave Bravo, which ran over 50 degrees hotter than our test temperature of 350F — not the best for precision cooking/baking.
The Panasonic FlashXpress could reach the set temp of 350 quickly, but it had trouble maintaining that temperature over a 30-minute period, consistently running cool in our tests. We used FLIR imaging and probes to measure temperature accuracy.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
In addition to measuring accuracy, we measured the time it took each oven to preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The winner here was the Panasonic FlashXPress, which reached 350F in 1.6 minutes. This oven has two infrared heating elements which reach temp much faster than a standard toaster oven's heating elements. The petite Breville Mini Smart Oven followed closely, preheating in just 1.7 minutes, which makes sense because it has less internal area to heat. The Ninja Foodi Digital Oven took 1.8 minutes. Many of the other models were within 60 seconds of this time. The chart below shows how long it took each toaster oven in our test to achieve an internal temperature of 350F.
The large Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro took a full 5.4 minutes to reach 350F, over three times longer than its smaller sibling, the Mini Smart Oven.
The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro was one of the most accurate models we tested, temp-wise. However, it took the longest amount of time to preheat.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
We have scored each model using all of the data from our temperature accuracy testing, including the time to preheat and the average temperature deviation.
The best in the test were the Ninja Foodi, Hamilton Beach Easy Reach, and Breville Mini Smart Oven. The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro was one of the most accurate, but we docked a few points for its slow preheat time.
How to Pick the Best Toaster Oven
Whether you need a toaster oven for your morning bagel or a new oven for reheating leftovers, we've compiled a summary of our complete buying advice to help you narrow your options.
How Much Space Do You Have?
Toaster ovens come in various sizes, so it's important to consider a size that fits your kitchen and counter space. You can narrow down size options by how many mouths you feed. A smaller-sized oven works great for one or two people, while a larger-sized oven makes sense for families and large households.
The Breville Mini Smart Oven takes up minimal counter space.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Important Features
Certain features can be especially handy when using your toaster oven, while others may never see the light of day in the kitchen. Consider features most useful to your preferred cooking style and habits. Rack options for pizza pans, air fry racks, or baking pans can be useful for different types of food. In contrast, other features such as defrost buttons and reheat modes can be especially nice for folks who plan to use their toaster oven for a variety of kitchen tasks.
What Cooking Functions Do You Need?
While all ovens will offer the ability to toast food, there are a variety of cooking functions such as broil, bake, convection, and air fry offered between different models. Some ovens will offer all these features, while others will only offer one or two different functions. If you're on the fence about which functions to choose, consider any other appliances you use for cooking, their cooking features, and the foods you typically like to cook. Ovens with more cooking functions will also run at a premium, so if you already own an air fryer or dehydrator, you can look for simpler options at a friendlier price.
We looked at all of the key bells and whistles on each toaster oven to check the various cooking functions.
What About the Display?
An intuitive display is an important characteristic of a toaster oven, as it allows for easy operation and hassle-free selection. Features such as the temperature gauge can vary from precise temp dials to lackluster controls that only show the temperature in 50-degree increments. On the other end of the spectrum, some ovens come with built-in digital displays that make the user interface easy. If you do lots of cooking that requires precision and control over your oven's settings, it's worth spending some extra dough on a toaster oven with a dialed display.
An easy-to-use control panel such as the Breville Smart Oven Air makes cooking easier and often results in better-cooked food.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Conclusion
A toaster oven can add a wide range of cooking abilities to a dorm room or a spartan city kitchen without taking up much space. Even if you have access to a full-sized oven, these countertop models can still be worth adding to your arsenal of kitchen appliances. They heat up faster and have much better energy efficiency than conventional ovens. With hundreds of options on the market, it might seem like all toaster ovens are created equal, but when you start to look at the details, you'll find that the quality varies widely. We hope our expert review has helped you sift through the options and find the perfect model for your space, tastes, and budget.
There are hundreds of toaster oven options on the market, making counter space, capacity, and versatility key considerations.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
—AnnaMarie Houlis, Lesley Robinson, and Genaveve Bradshaw
