Best toaster oven 2022: countertop cooking made easy

The best toaster oven was designed to remove the need for a toaster in your home, but with the addition of convection cooking and larger, countertop-friendly designs, they are quickly replacing air fryers and even ovens, too. With a moderate internal capacity, most households use their toaster oven to cook lunchtime meals, midday snacks, or sides for their evening dishes.

Because of their in-built fans, toaster ovens use the same technology that you'll find in convection ovens. This fan keeps hot air circulating inside the oven, which leads to quicker cooking times and more evenly crisped surfaces on your roasted vegetables or even a simple oven pizza. Best of all, they often come with dedicated settings to cook a wide variety of meals, including dehydrating slices of fruit (ideal for homemade summer garnishes) or broiling the top of your mac and cheese for a bubbly brown top. 

For many people, a toaster oven can be used to replace the best air fryers thanks to their in-built frying baskets. We've ranked the best toaster ovens you can buy from Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Ninja, De'Longhi and Breville to help you find the right one for your kitchen. Of course, toaster ovens were primarily designed to replace the best toasters, and some of them even come with modes for bagels and fully adjustable brownness settings to cook multiple slices at once. This will come in particularly helpful to those who enjoy artisanal bread which may not fit into a conventional toaster. 

The best toaster ovens we've tried and tested

The KitchenAid Digital Countertop Oven with Air Fry is smart to look at. It's got a matt black exterior and glossy steel door. The capacity is also pretty average, but there's plenty of space thanks to its nifty layout. 

The controls are very easy to use. The dial on the front of the machine helps to pick a mode and then choose a time, up to 120 minutes. It has an air fry basket which is very deep and means you won't have to turn your fries halfway through cooking. Preheat is speedy too: just four minutes. 

There are nine modes: Dehydrate, Proof, Bagel, Toast, Air Fry, Bake, Broil, Air Fry, and Keep Warm. You choose these using a very easy dial, and then turn to the right side to choose the temperature and time, as well as optional convection cooking. 

Our full KitchenAid Digital Countertop Oven with Air Fry review has more details

Wolf Gourmet is associated with premium quality, so it's no wonder that the Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven is among the very best of the toaster ovens we tested in this guide. The price does mean it will be out of reach for some buyers though. 

This countertop oven allows you to toggle with its convection setting, meaning you can turn it off for toasting or braising. The temperature probe is also easy to use, and we found that you can top up on timings to add some extra char to your steaks without compromising on how juicy it is on the inside. 

Settings include Bake, Roast, Broil, Toast/Bagel, and there is also a Proof setting which will work well in lieu of the best bread makers. Our tester Terri has been using this oven since 2020 without any issues, and if the five-year warranty is anything to go by, this toaster oven is built to last. 

Our full Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven Review has more details

If you live in a small home and want something to speed up meal times without taking an entire counter's worth of space, the Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Digital Air Fry Oven is designed just for you. Because it lifts up, it's easy to access the underside of the toaster oven to get an easy and deep clean, which is great news for those who plan to use this as their main toaster oven. It won't look quite as stylish on your countertop when it's leaned against the backsplash, but for convenience, it's totally worth it. 

For a start, Ninja has crammed 8 modes into the Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Digital Air Fry Oven: air fry, air roast, air broil, bake, bagel, toast, dehydrate, and keep warm. While it's never going to rival full-sized air fryers, it still has the space for a 13 x 13-inch baking tray, and it comes with two inserts for air frying and baking. 

It can also fit up to nine slices of toast and up to 4 pounds of chicken wings. The flip-away design is distinctive and great for those with small homes, and it also has a pull-out crumb tray to make sure it's clean for day-to-day use. 

Our full Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Flip Mini Oven review has more details

The Cuisinart Air Fryer Toaster Oven has a mid-size capacity that allows you to adjust the temperature, timer, and settings. You can air fry, bake, convection broil, warm, and more. 

Controls are incredibly straightforward, and you can simply twist the dial to add or take away time from your cooking cycle. Because it's a dial, we did find that it's tricky to find the exact temperature when turning it. 

The Cuisinart TOA-60 cooked fast, with finished nuggets in just 7 minutes. Our oven pizza was complete in just 10. This is a great alternative to a conventional oven, as we were able to cook an entire chicken which came out crisp and delicious. Compared to an air fryer though, we found that our fries weren't as crisp as we're accustomed to, and our toast needed turning halfway through cooking to reach an even level of brownness. 

Our full Cuisinart TOA-60 Air Fryer Toaster Oven review has more details

If you're not a confident home cook, the June Oven is here to help. It has pre-programmed recipes that will walk you through the cooking process step-by-step, and this app-compatible toaster oven can be controlled remotely. It even has in-built cameras to monitor your food, and a thermometer that will ensure your food is always cooked to perfection. 

In testing, we noted that this oven's compatible app subscription does require quite a hefty ongoing cost at $120 annually. You'll also have to pay extra for some of the Premium attachments including the cast iron griddle and air fry baskets. That's a shame given how costly this oven is, but there really is no comparison when it comes to smart tech, and if you want something that can do all of your cooking for you, it will be worth the investment. 

Everything from setup to cleaning is guided through the touchscreen panel at the front of the oven, and it even blow dries itself clean which is something we'd never seen before in any of our product reviews. There's no escaping from the fact that the food we made in this oven was perfectly cooked every time, and everything from cookies to pork chops came out resembling restaurant-style food. 

Our full June Oven review has more details

The best toaster ovens we've not yet reviewed

We're currently testing this one, meaning our review is incoming, and we think that Breville's The Smart Oven Pro is the premium pick for those who want a toaster oven that does it all. It has an LCD display that shows pre-heat information, and nine modes. 

The LCD display is easy to control, and because the capacity is on the medium side, it can cater to most families. Controls are intuitive too, with a button for frozen modes as well as one to activate the convection controls. While there is no specific toaster oven air fry mode, convection is a great way of achieving similar results. Non-stick coats the internal cavity of this toaster oven, meaning it will be straightforward to clean. 

There are nine modes in total: Toast, Bagel, Bake, Roast, Broil, Pizza, Cookies, Reheat and Warm. You can toggle everything from the size of the pizza you're cooking to the darkness of your toast. Included are a broiling rack, non-stick pizza pan, and enamel baking pan. 

Known for its classic and quality designs, De'Longhi's toaster oven is no exception. It has seven cooking modes, although air frying is not one of them, and the slanted front is perfect for displaying your food while it is cooking. 

The De'Longhi Livenza Countertop Oven is great for broiling because the top shelf fits nice and close to the top of the oven. The controls come in the form of three dials, which will allow you to adjust the time, temperature, and function independently. A removable crumb-tray and non-stick interior make the De'Longhi Livenza Countertop Oven very easy to clean, and the 0.8 cubic foot internal capacity is well laid out to make the most of all four shelves. 

The slanted front makes the De'Longhi Livenza Countertop Oven very easy to use. You will not have to bend to see your food when it cooks, which is also aided by the internal light. The controls are also intuitive for those who may be new to toaster ovens. 

One of the most modern-looking toaster ovens comes from Ninja. The Ninja 10-in-1 XL Pro Air Fry Oven has 10 times the power of a conventional convection oven, thanks to its 1800 watts of power. 

The thoughtful design, for one. It has two wire racks, two sheet pans, an air fryer basket, a roast tray and a drip tray, which will allow you to customize any meal you choose. 

The display is a touchscreen, which means you can control the Ninja 10-in-1 XL Pro Air Fry Oven with ease. It has ten modes in total: Air Fry, Whole Roast, Air Roast, Bake, Dehydrate, Pizza, Broil, Toast, Bagel, and Reheat. The 12lbs capacity has enough space to cook two 12-inch pizzas at once, as well as a whole 12-lb turkey. 

The Bella Pro Series 6-Slice Toaster Oven is our best toaster oven under $100. Granted, it doesn't come in at much under, but this 0.8 cubic foot capacity toaster oven will be perfect for family use. 

Pick from three different tray slots, which is perfect for cooking up a feast, and even adjust the brownness of your toast with the dial control. The crumb tray collects everything that falls away from your food, which makes cleaning easy. You can also rest assured that the 1800 watts of power will match toaster ovens twice the price. 

Modes include defrost, bake, pizza, toast, broil, reheat, warm, bagel and cookies. There is also a wire tray and bake pan. The interior is not coated in non-stick, and there is no convection setting, but this toaster oven is a great budget pick. 

The NuWave Bravo XL 30-Quart Convection Oven has an in-built temperature probe that will detect the internal temperature of your food and automatically adjust cooking timings to make sure every meal is cooked to the perfect level.

Unlike many of the best toaster ovens in our guide, the NuWave Bravo XL 30-Quart Convection Oven doesn't market itself as a toaster oven but rather as a convection oven. It's a countertop model that does have a mode for toasting and waffles though, so it's just as capable as any of the other models in our guide. 

There are 12 cooking modes in total, including air frying, baking, broiling, roasting, toasting, grilling, dehydrating, reheating, defrosting, and a mode for waffles. There's even a setting for making yoghurt, which is usually something we'd expect to find in the best Instant Pot. 

A few online users noted that despite the non-stick coating, they recommend covering the tray in foil because the coating was not the best quality. 

How did we pick the best toaster ovens? 

We try our very best to review as many products as possible for our guides. In our guide to the best toaster oven we have reviewed a handful of the products, and you will know which have been reviewed from the Homes & Gardens rating underneath the product. We never award a rating or a badge to a product that's not been tested by a member of our team. 

When choosing the other toaster ovens to include in our guide we took into account user reviews, the build material and look, and the number of settings. Other important things we noted were the cleaning instruction and the warranties, which are usually a good indicator of how long the brand will expect their product to last.

Our best toaster oven page is one of the many pages we are working on updating with regular reviews of leading market choices, so this page will be sure to change as we add more of our testing results. For now, we tend to place the toaster ovens we have tried and enjoyed ourselves to the very top of the page, because we can testify to their quality and how well they last in our kitchens. 

How do I choose a good toaster oven?

For one thing, you should consider the space you have available. While the best toaster ovens are excellent stand-ins for a regular oven, they do require counter space. We included the dimensions to make that consideration a little easier.

As for features, we recommend a toaster oven air fryer. That's not just because we're air fryer lovers, but convection technology will mean that your food will cook faster, and you'll end up with more options when it comes to mealtimes.