![Best toaster ovens displayed on wood counter](https://www.thespruceeats.com/thmb/axVUHVCYILmwyk-MryhgdgBFaXI=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/ses-product-group-shot-wdickey-923448d9d9c4498abe4847ec09b20a93.jpg)
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
While a mere toaster can handle pretty much only sliced bread (or maybe a bagel), a toaster oven is a much more versatile tool. This countertop appliance can also be used to make chocolate chip cookies, roast vegetables, heat frozen snacks, broil meat and seafood, bake a whole chicken, and melt cheese on mini pizzas or open-faced sandwiches. Many models even offer functions like dehydrating, convection baking, and air frying. Most are also more energy-efficient than a standard oven, which can help cut costs and keep the kitchen cooler during hot summer months. To help you find the perfect model, we tested more than 20, keeping a close eye on several aspects of each machine.
What to Look for in a Toaster Oven
Capacity
The toaster ovens we tested for this story can hold anywhere from four to nine or more slices of bread, or anywhere from a 9- to 13-inch pizza. That's an awfully wide range, and the first thing you should consider is just how much food you plan to cook at once. Toaster ovens with smaller capacities take up less room overall, making them great options for small spaces. They're also generally less expensive, but less-expensive ovens also tend to have fewer features in addition to smaller capacity. If you like to make baked goods or heat up a lot of frozen pizza and snacks, it's helpful if the oven can fit standard baking pans and trays. Another thing to take into account is height: A wide but short oven might have a large capacity but can't hold a whole chicken, for example.
Size
An oven's interior capacity is important, but so are its exterior dimensions. Measure your counter space before buying so you can compare each oven to your available space and know exactly how much room you have. Note that any toaster oven needs at least an inch or two of space for venting and safety around it in addition to its direct measurements. The machine is going to generate quite a bit of heat and could cause a fire if not used properly. You shouldn't push it right up against the wall—at least not when it's in use. That said, you'll want to make sure the location you've chosen is close to an outlet and that the cord length can reach it. Lastly, a reminder to unplug the toaster oven before cleaning the inside.
Functions & Controls
Some toaster ovens just toast, broil, and bake, while others can also convection-roast, air-fry, dehydrate, or slow-cook. Some models even have a built-in rotisserie for roasting poultry. Simpler ovens might just have a manual dial for mode and another for temperature, while more advanced ones offer digital touchscreens with pre-programmed modes for a wide variety of dishes, from bagels to pizza to chicken wings. A more versatile machine is typically more expensive, so it's probably only worthwhile if you'll actually use all those extra functions. One often-overlooked feature is an interior light: If you can't see what's inside the oven, you have to open the door, which lets out heat.
While the simplest toaster ovens can toast, bake, and broil, others have cooking features that rival your full-size oven plus other kitchen appliances. If you want to broil a steak, make a rotisserie chicken, air fry chicken wings, or dehydrate jerky, there are toaster ovens that can do all of that and more. You'll also find more toaster ovens with the ability to convection bake or ones that are microwave toaster oven combination machines.
You'll also find ovens loaded with cooking presets for items like bagels, frozen pizza, cookies, proofing bread dough, and slow cooking. These settings help take the guesswork out of choosing cooking time and temperature, but they're only useful if you'll actually use them.
Accessories
Most toaster ovens include a rack and removable crumb tray for ease of cleaning, along with usually one pan for baking or broiling. But more accessories can be useful, especially because toaster ovens are often too small to accommodate the bakeware you already own. Multiple baking trays, pans, and racks that are built to slide right into place can be very useful. Some ovens include more specialized accessories, like rotisserie spits, pizza stones, and cupcake trays.
Best Overall
Instant Omni Plus Air Fryer Toaster Oven
Multifuntional
Large capacity
Simple digital controls
Expensive
Minor hot spot
If you want a toaster oven that goes above and beyond, check out the Instant Pot Omni Plus. Not only does it toast, but it doubles as an air fryer, and has settings for dehydrating, baking, roasting, and even has a built-in rotating rotisserie for kebabs, a whole chicken, or pork tenderloin. Despite all those capabilities, the controls are foolproof, with a bright display and simple dial that we found easy to use without even needing to refer to the instruction manual.
The 19-quart capacity of this oven will fit a 4-pound chicken in rotisserie mode, and we had no trouble toasting six slices of bread, baking nine cookies, or air-frying a full bag of french fries at once. Even with that large size, it heated up quickly, reaching 450 degrees within seven minutes and fully toasting bread in five. It held its temperature accurately and cooked fairly evenly, though we did notice a bit of a hot spot toward the front middle of the oven.
The Omni Plus is on the pricy side as toaster ovens go, and it's a bit bulky, but all those capabilities make it worthwhile, especially for a larger family that goes through a lot of bread, chicken, or french fries. After six months of consistent use, it still performs as expected and has successfully cooked toast, veggies, and salmon. It's also been incredible to have during hot summer months as an alternative to warming the full-size oven.
Power: 1,800 watts | Capacity: 0.6 cubic feet | Dimensions: 12 x 12 x 13.9 inches
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
Best Budget
Black+Decker Toaster Oven
Inexpensive
Fast heating, even cooking
Easy to clean
Small capacity
Unusual heating method
This Spartan toaster might not have a lot of bells and whistles, but it's quite affordable and performed extremely well at the exact thing that's in its name: toasting four slices of bread. This is pretty much exactly what you want a toaster to do. It had very even browning. Its small capacity makes the whole unit quite compact, though it has space for a 9-inch pizza, with a pizza oven–like domed shape to help it cook hot and evenly.
The controls on this toaster are very simple, which is to say they probably haven't changed much since the 1980s. There are three knobs: one for temperature, one for a 30-minute timer/toast color selector, and one for cooking mode (bake, broil, toast, or keep warm). That doesn't affect performance, though, as we got impressive, even results with toast, cookies, and broiled cheese on toast. Cleaning is also easy, with removable racks and crumb tray.
The Black + Decker heated up really quickly in our tests, but the secret behind that seems to be that it cranks the heat really high and then lets it cool down to the target temperature. It hit 572 degrees Fahrenheit after five minutes when set at 450, but then it kept the temperature pretty consistent once it got back to 450. Your best bet might be to let it preheat completely before putting anything inside.
Power: 1,150 watts | Capacity: 0.5 cubic feet | Dimensions: 11.2 x 15.5 x 8.3 inches
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
Best Versatile
Breville Smart Oven
Quick and accurate heating
Large capacity
Easy-to-use settings
No custom timer setting
Cool spots around edges
Part of what makes Breville's Smart Oven smart are its five separate quartz heating elements, which are controlled independently to make sure the interior heats evenly and consistently. That was impressively demonstrated in our temperature tests, during which the oven stayed solidly within a degree or two of the set temperature after preheating. (That's much harder to do in a countertop oven than in a heavily insulated wall or under-range oven.) It's also capacious, able to fit a half-dozen cookies or slices of bread, a 13-inch pizza, or an entire chicken.
With really simple built-in settings and a large, clear screen for using them, this Smart Oven model might be a perfect choice for a beginning baker or person just moving out on their own. You tell it what and how much you're cooking, and it takes care of the rest. Using the cookie and toast settings, it baked delicious cookies and toasted six slices of bread to excellent brownness, but we did find that both items were slightly lighter in color around the edges of the machine. The heating elements don't extend all the way to the walls of the oven, which is probably why. An annoyingly missing function is that you can't simply choose a temperature and time; you have to use one of the presets. (That said, the instructions do lay out what times and temperatures each setting uses.)
In terms of ease of cleaning, this model falls in the middle: The racks, pans, and crumb tray are removable but not dishwasher-safe, and you can't use a scouring pad or abrasive cleaner on stubborn bits without damaging the finish.
Power: 1,800 watts | Capacity: 0.8 cubic feet | Dimensions: 18.5 x 15.7 x 11.1 inches
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
Best Splurge
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer
Large capacity
Many functions
Effective cooking
Cool spots on sides
This version of Breville's Smart Oven works equally as well as the one above, but also adds a powerful convection fan for air frying. It could honestly be an all-in-one cooking device for someone without a full kitchen, like a college student in a dorm or retiree who's taken to an RV. It performed well in all our tests, albeit with some cool spots on the six-slice toast test and slightly over-browned cheese with the broiler cranked all the way up. Additionally, we weren't huge fans of how loud the machine was.
As an air fryer, it was a great success, bringing nearly a full bag of frozen french fries to crisp and golden perfection. We are impressed with the machine's size generally and could have toasted nine full slices of bread at once when our testing procedure called for just six. We also like the frozen foods setting, which automatically adjusts from lower temperature to thaw and fully cook the food, then a high-temp finish to brown and crisp it.
After six months of everyday use, the Breville has performed above expectations, used for everything from toast and bagels to Brussels sprouts, mozzarella sticks, tater tots, and homemade chicken nuggets. Everything has turned out phenomenal, crisped and browned to spec. It's even great for items that just need warming up, like Pop-Tarts or leftover pizza. No more soggy slices, either—it crisps the crust back to life and tastes better than it did before.
The big downside, of course, is price. You pay a lot for this oven, but you get a lot in return. It's definitely best for someone who's going to use it frequently, whether that's toasted English muffins every morning for a family or in a stove- or full-size-oven-free setup, where it'll be the main cooking device.
Power: 1,800 watts | Capacity: 0.8 cubic feet | Dimensions: 18.5 x 15.7 x 11.1 inches
The Spruce Eats / Ariane Resnick
The Spruce Eats / Ariane Resnick
The Spruce Eats / Ariane Resnick
The Spruce Eats / Ariane Resnick
Best for Big Families
Ninja Air Fry Countertop Oven
Powerful and compact
Many cooking settings, including air-frying
Easy to clean
Front door gets very hot when in use
Glass can stain or get foggy
Maybe you're in charge of french fries for a large household with a small kitchen. Maybe you're running an underground avocado toast restaurant. Maybe you just have really low-set cabinets. No matter why you need lots of cooking capacity crammed into an efficient space, this Ninja might be the model for you. The wide-but-flat toaster was made to flip up on its side when not in use so it can tuck away in a corner, cabinet, or even sink backsplash or drawer. The swivel base makes it so easy you can even flip it up one-handed.
That unique layout didn't interfere with performance in our tests, in which it was able to bake nine cookies and toast nine slices of bread in short order. Ninja also says the oven can fit a 13-inch pizza or six chicken breasts. We did find some uneven spots in the toast test, with the front of the oven being the hottest and the back corner being the coolest. We also noted that the preset modes tended to cook things a little longer than necessary, so keep an eye on your food.
As an air fryer, the Ninja impressed with its power, cooking fries to an even and thorough crispness. Its many cooking options even include a dehydrate mode, something that's uncommon in the toasters we tested. In addition to a removable crumb tray, this oven's tilting design makes it possible to clean the machine extremely thoroughly; the back panel opens up to easily access the entire interior.
Six months after our initial testing, the flip-up design remains a favorite feature. We also really like the keep-warm feature and that you set the time and temperature with dials rather than buttons, as the text on those can often fade with time. It's also proven to be much quieter than other air fryers. It plays a little chime once it's preheated and when cooking is complete, but other than that, you barely hear it at all. The only minor complaint is that the clear glass front gets stained and fogged up sometimes, which can make it look dirtier than it is, but in the grand scheme of things, that's nothing to write home about.
Power: 1,800 watts | Capacity: 0.1 cubic feet | Dimensions: 19.7 x 15 x 7.6 inches
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
Best Large-Capacity
Cuisinart TOA-60W Convection Airfryer Toaster Oven
Large capacity
Excellent air-fryer performance
Quick heating
Runs hot on bake mode
Air frying has become popular—there’s no better way to cook mess-free crispy wings or potato wedges—but standalone air fryers take up valuable counter space. This combination air fryer/toaster oven takes up less space than either one would on its own, and it may just be worthy of a permanent place in your kitchen. We weren't exactly air-frying experts when we loaded this machine with french fries, but we followed the included directions—cook for six minutes, shake, and cook for six minutes more—and got perfect results.
This model is roomy both horizontally and vertically, so it can handle up to six slices of toast or a 12-inch pizza, as well as a whole chicken or 3 pounds of wings. Much like with the air-frying test, it passed our toast tests with flying colors, but it didn't do such a great job with cookies, over-baking them. We found that it runs quite hot on bake mode, which isn't necessarily a fatal flaw, but it is something you'll have to get used to.
On the cleaning front, the air-fry basket and baking tray are dishwasher-safe (a nice plus), while the nonstick interior wipes out with a damp cloth like most other models. It's a space saver that can replace two different countertop appliances, but it's a pretty big investment to match.
Power: 1,800 watts | Capacity: 0.6 cubic feet | Dimensions: 12.3 x 15.8 x 13.8 inches
The Spruce Eats / Tamara Staples
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
Final Verdict
The Instant Omni Plus Toaster Oven Air Fryer won our top spot due to its multifunctionality, large capacity, and consistent performance on cooking tests. If you're on a budget, we suggest the Black+Decker 4-Slice Toaster Oven. It's compact, easy to use, and quite spacious for a small oven.
How We Tested
We purchased and tested 22 different toaster ovens, running identical tests on each model to compare them objectively. After setting each oven to preheat to 450 degrees, we measured the interior temperature every minute until the heat stabilized in order to rate their power and heating ability. We tested the toast function by toasting a single slice of bread by itself as well as six slices (or the machine's maximum capacity) at once to look for accuracy and evenness of cooking. We did the same with Nestle Toll House cookie dough to rate baking functions and melted cheese over a slice of bread to test out the broiler. For machines with an air-fry setting, we also fried frozen french fries and tested for even doneness, color, and crispness.
We also examined the machines' instructions and capabilities to rate them on ease of use, and we followed the included directions to fully clean the ovens and rate them on ease of cleaning. While testing the units, we made notes on accessories, additional cooking modes, design, and other aspects of performance, all before revealing the retail price to take value into consideration.
The Spruce Eats Team Tests the Best Toaster Ovens and Air Fryers
Other Options We Tested
- Oster Toaster Oven/Digital Convection Oven: This oven's performance was really uneven, not just in terms of toast that was darker on the bottom than the top, but also in terms of the timer. It has six different toast color settings, but setting 4 produced barely toasted bread while setting 5 burnt it to a crisp. (The discrepancy was bad enough that we worried the oven shipped with a broken timer.) The machine also took a long time to cook, especially in air-fry mode, delivering unevenly done fries in a disappointing 22 minutes.
- Balmuda The Toaster: The incredibly high price tag on this toaster is supposedly justified by its steam heating, which allegedly keeps the interior of the bread softer and tastier. (You pour a small amount of water into the top to generate steam.) Unfortunately, it didn't produce toast results that were anything particularly special, and it underbaked the cookies in our test. You can find a better-performing toaster for far less money.
- Cuisinart Chef's Convection Toaster Oven: We found this oven impressively powerful—almost too powerful for toast, as it over-browned bread in less time than the toast preset should have. Its many setting options might be best suited to someone doing more advanced baking than just toast or cookies.
![cheese broiled on toasted bread, french fries, and cookies](https://www.thespruceeats.com/thmb/In0jxXV7YW25pJzvW05vh-TOlcg=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/toaster-oven-test-misc-shot-wdickey-193-ac29764f45794393b5a37dba8270e93c.jpg)
The Spruce Eats / Will Dickey
FAQS
How do you use a toaster oven?
Think of a toaster oven as a miniature version of a standard oven. At its most basic level, you set a temperature and a timer, put food in, and close the door. Most toaster ovens have multiple heating elements both above and below the food racks, and the specific cook setting affects which ones heat up. For baking, only the bottom elements turn on at moderate heat to bring the entire oven to a set temperature. For broiling, the top elements crank up to high temperature for things like melting cheese or browning crust with no heat from beneath. And for toasting, both sets of heating elements are fired up to brown the bread from above and below at the same time.
Because a toaster oven is smaller than a traditional oven, it heats up more quickly, but it also cools down more quickly when you put in cold food or even open the door to check doneness. This doesn't matter too much for toast, but if you're baking cookies or warming up cold leftovers, keep in mind that it's a good idea to preheat the oven before cooking.
For toaster ovens with more advanced, automated settings, you'll have to read the user manual for details. Using air-fryer or dehydrator or steam-baking mode is usually not any more complicated than pushing a few buttons, but each oven has its own combination of buttons to push.
Can you put aluminum foil in the toaster oven?
For the most part, yes, but you have to be careful. The foil should not touch the heating elements or any of the interior walls of the oven, which can cause sparks or scorching and poses a fire risk. But lining the baking tray or tenting a dish with a small amount of aluminum foil is generally safe. (Check your individual oven's user manual for its specific rules.)
What can you cook in a toaster oven?
There's not much you can't cook in a toaster oven. Some popular items include:
- Toast: A toaster oven can, of course, make toast—lots of slices at a time—but it's also great for toasting bagels, English muffins, hamburger or hot dog buns, and really any bread that needs browning.
- Melts, quesadillas, and grilled cheese sandwiches: The broiler setting is ideal for melting cheese on an open-face sandwich, tortilla, or couple slices of bread. Just assemble the bread and fillings cheese-side up and place under the broiler to melt. To finish a closed-face grilled cheese, simply fold together two slices of cheese-melted bread, then flip the completed sandwich under the broiler a few times to finish toasting the outside. Just keep a close eye on everything: Bread and cheese can both go from lightly toasted to heavily burnt in a few seconds under a hot broiler.
- Baked goods: Baking cookies, cakes, muffins, brownies, and quick breads in a toaster oven is essentially exactly the same as in a standard oven: The cooking temperature and time are no different. But with a toaster oven's smaller capacity and pans, you may need to cut down your recipe or cook it in batches.
- Frozen foods: French fries, chicken nuggets, and mozzarella sticks can be cooked directly from frozen in a toaster oven—some even have special frozen-food settings. Make sure to leave plenty of room between items for airflow, however, or they won't get as crisp.
- Leftovers: A plate of pretty much any leftovers can be reheated in a toaster oven, too—just make sure to use an oven-safe plate and the bake or reheat setting. A toaster oven is also one of the best ways to reheat leftover pizza. Use the toast setting to re-crisp the bottom crust and re-melt the cheese at the same time, but stay close to make sure nothing starts to burn.
- Meat: Proteins like chicken, steak, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, and fish fillets can be baked, broiled, or roasted in a toaster. In fact, toaster-baking bacon slices is one of the easiest ways to get foolproof results.
- Vegetables: From roasting potato wedges and baking full-size potatoes to broiling asparagus or carrots, a toaster oven is the ideal appliance to cook a few servings of veggies without using a full-size oven.
How do you clean a toaster oven?
Before you start any cleaning, unplug the toaster and let it cool completely. After that, your first step is to pull out the crumb/drip tray at the bottom, along with any other removable racks and pans, and wash them with soap and water. (Some models have dishwasher-safe parts—check your manual.)
Cleaning the interior of the oven is a bit more complicated, since the heating elements and other electrical parts can't be submerged in water, and you can't use any kind of abrasive sponge or cleaning chemicals. You can generally use a damp cloth to wipe out the inside, though, and lots of models have nonstick interiors to help make the cleaning process simpler. You can also use the same damp cloth to wipe down the controls, door, and other exterior areas. Baked-on grease that won't wipe away with a damp rag can be tackled with a mix of baking soda and water. Add enough water to baking soda to make a paste, spread over the problem area, and let sit for several hours or overnight. Then, wipe (you might have to apply some elbow grease) with a clean rag.
Testing Toaster Ovens for Accessories, Size, and Capacity
Why Trust The Spruce Eats?
Donna Currie is a writer and product tester for The Spruce Eats. Not only is she a bread-making expert (she wrote a book about it), but Donna has also written roundups on various kinds of ovens, including roaster and pizza, for the site. She's also reviewed a diverse range of ovens for us—one standout was the NutriChef Multi-Function Rotisserie Oven, which she loves making kebabs with.
This roundup was updated with further insights from Lab testing by Jason Horn, The Spruce Eats staff writer. At times in his life when he hasn't owned a toaster oven, he's been forced to toast bread in a pan on the stove or in his full-size oven, both risky propositions.