The Best Toaster Oven for Cooking, Baking and Heating

The toaster oven can now perform almost all the best kitchen ovens, reach the same temperature, and have numerous features that allow perfect cooking.

Living alone or in pairs, you can cook almost completely with a toaster oven, roast meat, and fish, and cook pizzas or some desserts optimally.

However, even in a large family nucleus, the oven is handy for heating cooked food or cooking pre-packaged or frozen foods without lighting the oven.

For space reasons, the toaster oven is perfect for small kitchens or studios with limited space. There is only the hob, country houses or holiday homes, or small apartments where you do not want to purchase large appliances. Moreover, it is an excellent appliance that can support old gas ovens, which do not have all the toaster oven functions.

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How to choose a toaster oven: Types and Characteristics

To choose the best toaster oven for our home, we must first determine whether it will serve as the main oven or use it only to complement the traditional kitchen. Having clarified this aspect, these are the most important characteristics to consider when buying a small oven.

Dimensions

The oven’s dimensions naturally affect how much food can cook at a time. Thus, a small oven will be useful for heating and defrosting food and cooking for a few people, while a large toaster oven will cook more food and successfully deal with different types of cooking, as we will see later.

The oven dimensions should not be considered exclusively as appliance measurements, but checking the capacity expressed in liters is important. For example, there are small furnaces with a capacity of 10 liters and larger furnaces that can reach 50 liters, very close to a traditional oven’s capacity.

Power

A toaster oven’s power indicates its ability to cook for large quantities, reach high temperatures and cook in shorter times. For example, the power of most advanced cookers can reach up to 2,000 watts, which allows you to cook roasts and pizzas easily.

Temperature

Together with the power, the temperature is also important to carry out cooking professionally. Of course, the best toaster oven reaches a temperature of 250°C, but naturally, it guarantees the possibility of setting the temperatures through a thermostat to allow even delicate cooking.

Cooking

The toaster oven can be equipped with various cooking functions. The simpler furnaces generally have at least static and ventilated cooking. Static cooking is traditional and provides heat from below and above, suitable for leavened products such as cakes or bread that must remain soft. Ventilated cooking instead adds the fan function to static cooking. This way, food cooks faster and is crisper, such as roasts or biscuits.

With ventilated cooking, you can also cook at slightly lower temperatures. The most advanced models of toaster ovens are equipped with other cooking methods. Add the grill function to cook food on the surface, the rotisserie function to cook meat on the spit, defrosting and heating functions, the bread function to bake bread, and pizza.

Self-cleaning function

The self-cleaning toaster oven is equipped with a technology capable of eliminating dirt and unpleasant odors thanks to its high temperatures and the materials it uses. This way, grease, and dirt do not remain attached and do not require special cleaning detergents.

Timer

The timer is present in almost all models of the oven. In addition, more advanced models have a self-extinguishing timer to prevent the oven from remaining longer than necessary. You can set the timer manually, but in some cases, the cookers have preset programs that adjust the cooking time according to the food to be cooked.

Lights and door

One of the disadvantages of a toaster oven compared to traditional large ovens has always been the lack of visibility inside. Today, thanks to optimally designed doors and interior lights typical of high-end furnaces, it is possible to observe the food being cooked.

These characteristics are essential when cooking foods, such as sweets or bread, so the temperatures of the recipes could vary. A few minutes, too, could ruin the dish’s success. So even opening the oven to check could be disastrous if done too early.

Accessories

One or two grids and a tray or dripping pan are included when buying the toaster oven. In addition, we can find other accessories such as spit, various pan-specific types for pizza or bread, special handles to handle the trays, and recipe books in the top-of-range models.

The best toaster oven to buy

Let’s see the top 10 best toaster ovens selected for value for money and among the most reliable brands. Below is the list of the 10 best toaster ovens currently on sale with prices and features.

Product prices and availability are subject to change. Therefore, any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to purchasing any products.