I Tested 23 Toaster Ovens for All Your Toasting, Roasting, and Air-Frying Needs

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 23 toaster ovens through the ringer (and blew more than one power fuse) to see if our previous top picks were still the best-of-the-best—and how they compared to newer models. The best toaster ovens are reliable, versatile, and, of course, deliver beautifully browned toast. 

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Toaster Oven

Breville Smart Oven Pro

$280 $230 at Amazon $270 $230 at Target $270 $230 at Sur La Table

The Breville Smart Oven Pro won our previous toaster oven review. After re-evaluating, I still think it’s the best toaster oven for power and versatility. 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 super convection feature also ensures perfectly crispy (and fast) results every time.

The Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven

Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro

$400 $300 at Amazon $300 at Williams Sonoma $419 $25 at Walmart

If you want a truly do-it-all toaster oven, this is basically the same oven as our overall winner but it also has air fryer capabilities. It took the top spot in our review of air fryer toaster ovens for its powerful convection, which produced ultra-crunchy French fries and browned, crispy-skinned chicken wings.

The Best Smaller Toaster Oven

Breville the Smart Oven Compact Convection

$200 at Amazon $200 at QVC View on Breville.com

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 Best Toaster Oven for Perfect Toast

BALMUDA Steam Oven Toaster

$299 $240 at Amazon $270 at Williams Sonoma $300 at Sur La Table

The Balmuda Steam Oven Toaster is 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. If you're an avid home-baker, this is a fantastic option.

Editor's Favorite Toaster Oven

Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro

$550 $450 at Amazon $400 at Williams Sonoma $400 at Sur La Table

Serious Eats editors have been using the Breville Joule for years, and it's still kicking. It toasts well, air fries capably, and the app lets you set timers and keep an eye on things as they cook.

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. The best toaster ovens, like the ones from Breville, 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.  

Super Convection Cut Down Cook Time

What do most of our favorite toaster ovens from Breville have in common? They all have powerful convection fans. This is a great feature not only because it ensures crispy, evenly heated results (lookin' at you, golden French fries and you, burnished, crispy-skinned roast chicken ), but also because it cuts down cooking time dramatically. We often could stop cooking five to 10 minutes earlier than the recipe indicated. That said, if you're cooking meat you'll want to use an instant-read thermometer to ensure doneness—better safe than sorry!

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 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. And it should be easy to clean.

Our Favorite Toaster Ovens

The Best Toaster Oven

Breville Smart Oven Pro

$280 $230 at Amazon $270 $230 at Target $270 $230 at Sur La Table

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 (you can roast a chicken in it) makes it well-suited 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
  

The Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven

Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro

$400 $300 at Amazon $300 at Williams Sonoma $419 $25 at Walmart

What we liked: This oven sports a dial interface, making it easy to toggle between the many, many functions it offers (including toast and air fry). We also liked that you can adjust the temperature and time while cooking—perfect if you need a smidge more time or want to blast the heat for the last few minutes. It toasted decently (though it does err on the side of pale) and air-fried supremely well. Thanks to its super convection fan, French fries emerged golden and crunchy, and it made perfect, succulent air-fried chicken wings.

What we didn't like: While it does tend to produce pale toast, it's easy to up the time and get a darker shade (just turn the dial).

Key Specs

• Weight: 23 pounds
• Dimensions: 21.5 x 17.5 x 12.7 inches
• Type and dimensions of air fry basket: Standalone wire basket, 12 x 15 inches
• Interface type: Manual, with three dials and six push-buttons total, including super convection
• Functions: Toast, bagel, broil, bake, roast, warm, pizza, proof, air fry, reheat, cookies, slow cook, and dehydrate
• Minimum temperature: 80°F
• Maximum temperature: 480°F
• Warranty: 2-year limited
  

The Best Smaller Toaster Oven

Breville the Smart Oven Compact Convection

$200 at Amazon $200 at QVC View on Breville.com

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

The Best Toaster Oven for Just Toast

BALMUDA Steam Oven Toaster

$299 $240 at Amazon $270 at Williams Sonoma $300 at Sur La Table

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

Editor's Pick

Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro

$550 $450 at Amazon $400 at Williams Sonoma $400 at Sur La Table

What we liked: This is a spacious toaster oven—you could fit a 14-pound turkey in it if you wanted to—that baked, roasted, toasted, and air-fried well. It's been an editor favorite for years, and even won our review of countertop ovens, too. We liked the "add more time" function and that we could set custom temperatures, like 373°F, just for kicks.

What we didn't like: While we don't use the app a ton, associate commerce editorial director Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm does find its reminders to flip or turn items quite useful. The toast function is a little spotty (literally) but it overall does a fine job. It's expensive.

Key Specs

• Dimensions: 21.25 x 15.75 x 12.75 inches
• Interface: Manual, with three dials for adjusting mode, temperature, and time, and buttons for start/stop, oven light, convection fan, adding “a bit more” time, and cooking from frozen
• Functions: Toast, bagel, bake (convection, super convection, or conventional), air fry, broil, roast, pizza, cookies, proof, reheat, slow cook, keep warm, dehydrate
• What's included: Crumb tray, 13-inch nonstick pizza pan, two reversible wire racks, 9- by 13-inch broiling rack and roasting pan, and an air frying/dehydrating wire mesh basket

The Competition

• Breville Smart Oven Convection Toaster Oven: This 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.
• Calphalon Air Fryer Oven: Our previous top pick, we re-tested this toaster oven after hearing complaints about its performance. Turns out they were warranted. It produced near-burnt toast, limp fries, and flabby chicken wings. The oven also felt cheaply built and the rack fell out when the door was opened.
• 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. 
• Cosori 26-Quart Ceramic Air Fryer Oven: While this air fryer toaster oven produced golden, crispy chicken wings, we later found a pamphlet that said to not use the fryer basket to cook oily foods. This is very limiting, and almost negates the point of having an air fryer function. Plus, this was not mentioned in the air frying section of the instruction manual, which was odd.
• GreenPan Bistro Noir 6-in-1 Air Fry Toaster Oven: Fries were soggy and wings remained wan even after 24 minutes of cooktime.
• Ninja 12-in-1 Double Oven with FlexDoor: While this oven had good results, the double oven aspect made for a cramped cooking space.
• 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.
• 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 favorite toaster oven, 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 tested 23 toaster ovens, using them to make toast, broil, and bake chicken pot pie and frozen pizza.
• We've recommended the Breville Smart Oven Pro toaster oven for about seven years and stand by its longevity and quality.