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Even the best toaster ovens can be polarizing kitchen appliances: They take up more space than a traditional pop-up toaster (small con) but have the functionality of a large oven (huge pro). For some skeptics, they might not even seem necessary, but their convenience is tough to beat. These days, toaster ovens tend to do a lot more than just, uh, toast—reheating features are helpful for getting just the right crispness on your leftover pizza without totally charring the crust, baking features allow for evenly cooking raw foods or items fresh out of the freezer, and air frying features help you nail the beloved crispy-cooking method with ease. But if you’re in the market for a toaster oven, you’ll quickly realize it’s a crowded one. So we did the heavy lifting for you by testing and highlighting the best of the best for all your cooking and reheating needs.
The Best Toaster Ovens, at a Glance
If you want to skip right to the good part, here’s a quick run-through of our top picks on this list:
How We Tested
We observed how each oven was packaged, the amount of inner trays and cooking baskets stockpiled within each, and the physical dimensions the oven occupies on a countertop for all you living in rather cramped dwellings. Then we tested each toaster by (duh) toasting either bread or bagels, as well as spinning through other functions like the air fry or baking methods to determine their range. We also compared preheat times, cooking functionalities, and general ease of use to really put these through their paces. Below, our assessment of the best toaster ovens to speed up and ease up your kitchen prep.
The Best Overall Toaster Oven: KitchenAid Digital Countertop Toaster Oven
Size: 16″ x 17″ x 11.3″
Weight: 15 lb, 4 oz.
Capacity: 6 to 8 slices
This KitchenAid model has just about everything you’d conceivably want or need in a countertop toaster oven, with a range of features to justify the cost. The oven doesn’t take up too much real estate on your counter and offers nine cooking functions, including toasting, air frying, baking, reheating, and even dehydrating. As a baseline, you’ll find some “set it and forget it” preset modes for serving up toast and bagels bleary-eyed in the morning. Plus, for those last-minute late night dinners, the oven gets up to temp in only four minutes, which is the fastest preheat time of all the ovens we tested.
Internally, the oven comes with multiple attachments: an air fry basket, a 9-inch by 13-inch baking pan, a small grill rack that nests within the baking pan, a metal rack, and a crumb tray. Unlike other accessories that require extra storage, you can insert all the trays into the oven at the same time as well as move them around inside if you’re a multitasker that wants to cook a number of items, like a pizza and wings, in one go. The multiple trays make it possible to carb load on toast or bagels in bulk, or divide and conquer breakfast for a family or group. We’d really consider it the Goldilocks of toaster ovens, if she were testing out versatile appliances instead of beds: It’s easy to use, perfects various cooking options in one compact model, and feels plenty practical and varied for a home chef’s ordinary and extraordinary needs.
The Best Looking Toaster Oven: CRUX 6-Slice Digital Toaster Oven
Size: 15.86″ x 19.48″ x 12.4″
Weight: 16 lb, 4 oz.
Capacity: 6 slices
CRUX’s toaster oven has an elevated look—with black and gold accents—that looks extra polished on your countertop. It came in one box (opposed to a packaged box within a box), which was a win for minimal packaging, and was easy to put together with four separate pieces that slid into the oven. The toaster oven does its main job of cooking proficiently, but there are some technical hangups worth mentioning. Once the preheat is complete, the cook timer immediately starts counting down—which meant that our tester rushed to get food in the toaster oven after the preheat dinged, and ended up adding a minute or two to the cooking duration to make up for lost time.
And while the oven has three trays that you can use at once (a solid baking sheet, a fry basket, and a wire rack), the fry basket sits on the wire rack so you really only have two shelves to use in tandem. Another minor detail that’s not a huge dealbreaker is that the trays were slightly tough to slide out while wearing oven mitts, but at the very least the oven door opens down at a wider angle, perhaps as an attempt to mitigate the rack situation. All in all, we’d still suggest the KitchenAid as our top contender, but the Crux might take the cake for overall style chops.
The Best Toaster Oven for Small Countertops: Breville Mini Smart Oven
Size: 15.5″ x 14″ x 8.75″
Weight: 18 lb, 4 oz.
Capacity: 4 slices
We’ll cut right to the chase: Breville’s Mini Smart Oven is perfect for a small kitchen. It’s compact, but still has the capacity to cook up food for more than one person. Additionally, you won’t have to hassle with a user manual to assemble the thing as it’s just comprised of a wire rack, a crumb tray, and a baking pan (easy-peasy). Per the name, this Smart Oven uses a digital display and a series of buttons to dial in on the time, temperature, and the type of cooking you’re aiming for. In addition to toasting, the Mini Oven is capable of broiling, baking, roasting, and reheating, with special settings for pizza and cookies. Though the oven only has one rack for cooking, it worked well making lunches and dinners. The oven toasted bread quickly and worked just as thoroughly making chicken nuggets and tempeh. We flipped items halfway through the cook time for the best results, which is usually a must for toaster ovens.
The Best Multitasking Toaster Oven: Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro
Size: 21.25″ x 17.25″ x 12.25″
Weight: 38 lb, 14 oz.
Capacity: 9 slices
The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is by far the largest, bulkiest, and most expensive oven we tested. It clocks in at a whopping 38 pounds, with a 21-inch length that’s wider than most. For obvious reasons, this toaster oven isn’t for the faint of heart, and more of an investment piece for those people with mile-long countertops, money to spare, and plenty of mouths to feed. The oven has a nine-slice capacity, perfect for large families or bulk food prep. The oven worked seamlessly when preparing breakfast, and it was spacious enough to make different items like gluten free toast and regular bagels at the same time while keeping them separate. The oven is high quality with a digital display and automatically adjusting heating elements. It practically replaces an oven with all its many functions, including toast, bagel, bake, broil, pizza, air-fry, dehydrate, reheat, and slow cook presets. It’s an overachiever of an oven for people who want to combine devices in one, so consider that cost per use when you wearily eye the steep price tag.
The Best Budget Toaster Oven: Ninja Foodi 2-in-1 Flip
Size: 16.54″ x 6.7″ x 8.42″
Weight: 21 lb
Capacity: 2 slices
Like the Razr phones of the early aughts, a device with a cool convertible function is decidedly gimmicky but also has certain irresistible qualities. The Ninja Foodi toaster does just that, standing up like a traditional toaster where you plunge slices of bread in its innards, and also turning on its side to cook food pizza oven-style. Though the dual function has its perks, the small window for food certainly limits what you can toast. A loaded bagel might be too tall and lead to burnt edges, but this model is great for heating sandwiches with toppings. Still, if you’re okay with it being a sliced bread and small foods toaster, it’s easy to put together and has a small footprint for dorm rooms and small homes. Plus, it does everything else you’d want in a toaster oven: heat up quickly, keep the time on a digital display, and (blessedly) turn off after five minutes of inactivity to save your electricity bill.
The Best Toaster Oven for Toast Exclusively: Balmuda Toaster
Size: 14″ x 12 1/2″ x 8 1/4″
Weight: 10 lb, 3 oz.
Capacity: 2 slices
The Japanese brand Balmuda wasn’t available in the states until very recently, but it was a cult-favorite for one thing: excellent toasted bread. Yes, a $300 toaster oven is aces at toasting bread. Using steam technology, the Balmuda toaster makes bread just the right degree of toasty on the outside, yet warm and soft on the inside (never too crusty or dry, in other words). Honestly, it could make a slice of Wonder Bread taste like it came from a fancy bakery. Part of the appeal of the steam technology is that it can reinvigorate stale bread and pastries so that they feel as fresh as the day you bought them. The toaster also has an oven function so it’s not just a glorified bread toaster, and it comes with a recipe book so you can bake things like cookies and reheat pizza in the toaster with ease.
The Best Air Fryer Toaster Oven: Cuisinart AirFryer Toaster Oven
Size: 15.5″ x 16″ x 14″
Weight: 21 lb
Capacity: 6 slices
An air fryer is just a convection oven with a fancy name to sell more product. There, we said it. A fan circulates hot air for even cooking, and it also happens to crisp up food, similarly (or not so similarly) to deep frying. The Cuisinart AirFryer toaster oven has seven functions, including the eponymous air fry option. It’s quiet and easy to use, and if you have a hankering for some air-fried chicken or fries, it’ll get you exactly what you need. This Cuisinart unit is cheaper than the Breville toaster oven, which as we noted before has a lot going on and is also dumb expensive. Cuisinart’s AirFryer toaster oven isn’t as technologically advanced, but if you want a countertop oven that has an air fryer option it’s a good budget option for the Breville.
