We updated this article on November 2021 to ensure that all products previously tested and approved by the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Kitchen Appliance Lab were in stock and reflected current prices.
Toaster ovens deserve respect: They take up little space, can replace multiple kitchen appliances (like your toaster and fryer - by the way, some are already toaster ovens with fryers) and shorten cooking times, especially when you use the convection setting. Besides toasting bread and bagels, they can cook whole chickens and roast vegetables. Since most toaster ovens don’t require preheating, they’re perfect for the summer months when you don’t want to heat your entire kitchen with your full-size oven. According to Energy Star, they are also energy efficient, using up to half the energy of a traditional oven.
In the Good Housekeeping Kitchen Appliance Lab, we test toaster ovens to see which ones can produce the most even, golden toast in the least amount of time. We’ve tested about 60 of them over the past 10 years. You can read more about how we do our testing at the bottom of this article. In the meantime, here is our test-based selection of the best toaster ovens you can buy in 2021:
Best toaster oven: Breville Compact Smart Oven.
Best toaster oven in terms of price: Hamilton Beach Sure-Crisp Toaster Oven
Best Toaster Oven with Fryer: Ninja Foodi Digital Frying Oven
Best small toaster oven: Panasonic FlashXpress Compact Toaster Oven
Most Versatile Toaster Oven: Cuisinart Chef’s Convection Oven
Compact Smart Oven
$151.95
Electronic controls and preset baking programs for bagels, cookies, and pizza (up to an 11-inch pie) make Breville’s Compact Smart Oven very easy to use. In our tests, it browned toast quickly, baked a beautiful cake and roasted tender potatoes and chicken. The non-stick coating makes cleanup easy. The control panel is also very intuitive and the stainless steel design is sturdy. Finally, there’s something to be said for an average rating of 4.6 stars on Amazon, out of over 4,000 reviews.
If you’re looking for a larger capacity, Breville’s Smart Toaster Oven Air, which holds nine slices of bread, or a five-liter Dutch oven, also scored well in our tests.
Sure-Crisp Air Fry Toaster Oven
$99.97
Hamilton Beach’s Super-Crisp doesn’t lack of performance. Although it looks very basic with easy-to-use controls, it toasted bread and cooked pizza evenly in a relatively short time. Besides its performance, its small footprint won’t take up too much space on your countertop, but can still accommodate six slices of bread and a 13-inch frozen pizza, so you’re not sacrificing size for convenience. We were very impressed with its air-frying capabilities: it produced crispy, juicy chicken wings and crispy fries that didn’t dry out.
Foodi Digital Frying Oven
$199.99
We already love Ninja for air frying: The brand’s Air Fryer Max XL is our pick for the best fryer. So it’s no surprise that it also impressed us with this fryer’s air crisp feature. It makes for crispy, yet fluffy wings with a large air frying rack that provides ample cooking space and promotes air circulation for the crispest results. It’s also a great toaster oven: In our tests, the control panel was intuitive and easy to read. Bread toasted well and cakes baked evenly. The bottom surface also opens up so you can clean it easily, and the entire unit folds down to be flush with your backsplash and store compactly.
We can’t wait to test Ninja’s latest air toaster ovens, the Foodi 10-in-1 XL Pro and the Foodi 10-in-1 Smart XL Pro smart oven, which includes a built-in thermometer.
FlashXpress Compact Toaster Oven
$149.00
While we haven’t tested this oven in our labs, it’s highly rated on Amazon. It’s compact (it holds a 9-inch pizza), so it’s ideal for small kitchens (or large kitchens with limited counter space!). It has preset cooking times for toast, reheating waffles and rolls, and cooking frozen foods like pizza and hash browns. We attach us like that the rack to the door and automatically moves forward when you open the oven.
Keep in mind that the oven heats for up to 25 minutes, which is great for many prepared frozen foods, but for longer cooks you’ll need to turn it back on. Reviewers have noted that the pan is difficult to clean and rusts easily. We suggest covering it with foil before placing food on it.
Chef’s Convection Toaster Oven
$247.99
Although it’s relatively compact, the Cuisinart Deluxe Stainless Steel Convection Toaster Oven can roast a golden chicken in an hour and is almost as quick to toast as a pop-up toaster. Its spacious interior can also accommodate a 13-inch pizza (and it comes with a pizza stone!). It has multiple convection fan settings and can be programmed for dual cooking, which means you can cook a chicken at one temperature to brown the skin and another to finish cooking.
For air frying, we recommend the Cuisinart Toaster Fryer Oven, which has four heating elements on top and a large fan to circulate hot air and make food even crispier, as well as a basket and fryer tray.
How we test toaster ovens
In our most recent test of over 20 toaster ovens, we toasted over 500 slices of bread. We test for consistency in baking, as well as the ability to toast a steak and melt cheese on open sandwiches. For toaster ovens with a fryer function, we test how quickly and evenly they crisp up chicken wings and frozen French fries. We also evaluate toaster ovens on the quality of their design, user manuals, control panels, ease of use, number of toasting positions, interior visibility, audible alert and ease of cleaning.
What to look for when buying a toaster oven.
✔️ Space: Consider the space you have as well as how you want to use the oven. If space is not an issue, dream big: Ovens like the Breville Smart Oven Air and June Oven can accommodate a small turkey. If space is an issue, there are plenty of compact ovens on the market, like the Sure-Crisp from Hamilton Beach, that can still accommodate six slices of bread at a time, or a 13-inch frozen pizza.
✔️ Design: Since your toaster oven will most likely live on your countertop, aesthetics are important. Digital toasters with stainless steel housings are sleeker and more modern than their mechanical counterparts.
✔️ Grill Positions: Most toaster ovens have two grill positions, but larger ones have three. The extra rack position allows for even more cooking versatility and usable space, especially for air frying or dehydrating. Typically, the highest positions are used for grilling, while we use the middle positions for toasting bread and baking, and we use the bottom positions for cooking large roasts or pizzas.
✔️ Additional Accessories and Features: Most toaster ovens come with at least one rack and one baking/roasting tray (note: a heavier baking tray means less warping over time). Most toaster ovens now come with a removable crumb tray that is also dishwasher safe. Dishwasher safe is also very important: Dishwasher safe parts make it easier to maintain the toaster oven by preventing smoke from dirt build-up and keeping it looking shiny and new.
Some toasters come with a frying basket/rack, others with pizza stones or roasting spits, and many include an interior light, which helps you see inside without opening the door. We found this feature very useful, and we also liked the toasters with large glass doors for better visibility.
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