Best toaster ovens of 2026

I set out to cook a wide variety of common toaster oven fodder. With the exception of the toast tests, where I looked at each toaster oven’s individual settings for light, medium, and dark toast, I used a uniform temperature and cooking times and followed the recommendations on the box for whatever I was cooking, wherever possible.

Roasting capabilities: speed and consistency

Making toast is one of the crucial tasks of a toaster. I mean it’s in the name. I pulled out a large batch of bread to see how quickly and equally each oven prepared a basic breakfast and sandwich meal.

Most low roasting ovens use a built-in kitchen timer to set the broiling, toasting and cooking time. Typically, these timers include two preset toasting options: medium toast, dark toast, and in some cases – a light setting, and slightly toast as well. Higher-end models with an LCD display usually allow you to dial in a certain level of doneness when roasting. You’ll usually get six or seven settings to choose from, each with pre-programmed toasting times. This is more precise than turning a timer knob and is worth it if you’re sticking with the perfect shade of golden brown.

For my purposes, I toasted four slices of thin white sandwich bread in each toaster oven over medium heat. This test is to see how evenly each oven toasts in all areas of the oven and how calibrated the medium toast setting is. Evenness is especially important when preparing breakfast for a group. Ideally, you’ll want them all to appear as close to identical as possible.

I also tested two pieces of bread on the lowest doneness setting (light) and on the highest setting (dark), to see how well these presets calibrated. After each of the three toast tests, I photographed the results and made sure to let the toaster oven cool to room temperature before testing again.

As for overall balance, the results were surprisingly uniform across the board, with the exception of the Cruxgg, which roasted very unevenly. The Hamilton Beach, Panasonic FlashXpress, and Breville Mini Smart Oven were among the best, with mostly even cooking and consistent medium browning. Balmuda also toasted four slices of bread evenly.

FlashXpress also has the most accurate calibrated settings. The light setting provides barely-there toasting while the dark setting produces properly dark pieces of toast without burning them. Both Breville and Balmuda also nailed the light and dark toast cycles when I tried them.

Besides the Cruxgg, which burned toast, even when set to medium, none of the doneness presets were too far out of control, although toast made in the Hamilton Beach model was oddly the same color for dark as it was for medium.

Cooking times

Speed ​​was also a factor. I think we can all agree that on busy mornings, the less time you have to wait for toast, the better. I noted the time each toaster took to complete a cycle on each of the three settings: light, medium, and dark.

In terms of pure speed, the Panasonic IR was the fastest, living up to its FlashXpress moniker. It roasts to a nice doneness in just 2 and a half minutes. The Balmuda also toasted four slices in less than three minutes, while the Breville Mini Smart oven did it in three minutes. The slowest was the clunky Oster, which took more than six minutes to reach the intermediate level, followed by the GE, which took almost five minutes and was Still minus.

Temperature consistency and accuracy

If you plan to bake things like cookies and pizza or use your toaster to prepare more complex recipes, you’ll need an oven that maintains a consistent temperature over time. To test the consistency of each oven, I tested the amount of rolling each oven experienced when set at 300°F for 15 minutes. I used a RisePro thermocouple thermometer To measure the highest temperature, lowest temperature, and average temperature throughout that period.

All of the ovens performed fairly well in this test, except for the Cruxgg. The Breville Smart Mini and Panasonic FlashXpress maintain an average temperature of 310 degrees Fahrenheit, just 10 degrees more than the target temperature, which is a good sign for any oven. The Balmuda Steam Oven can only be set to 350, 400, or 450°F, so I did the same test at 350°F. It performed well too, averaging just 12 degrees above the target temperature.

In shock, the Comfee toaster oven flipped the least — just 15 degrees from start to finish — to take first place in the consistency test, but that’s likely because it’s small and doesn’t have a convection fan to move the air. The Comfee was fairly accurate as well, although it ran about 22 degrees F hotter than the temperature I set for it. See the full results below.

Temperature consistency

	minute. temperature	Top. temperature	Average temperature	Difference from target
Breville Smart Mini	288 F	327 F	310 F	+10
Panasonic Flash Express	261 F	330 F	310 F	+10
Hamilton Beach	268 F	299 F	284 F	-16
Auster	270 F	319 F	285 F	-15
Crooksg	320 F	363 F	341 F	+41
General Electric	260 F	340 F	320 F	+20
Comfy	320 F	335 F	322 F	+22
Balmoda (set at 350°F)	320 F	365 F	360 F	+10

Testing convection and baking functions

To test each toaster’s power and ability to cook more basic foods, I baked three pizzas placed on a rack in different parts of the oven. This was to test how accurately each toaster melted the cheese, and another test to see how evenly the cooking was distributed across the oven. The box recommends baking frozen pizza at 425°F for 18 minutes, which is what I did in each toaster oven.

In addition to the pizza slices, I cooked a frozen Jamaican steak patty in each oven according to the package directions: 25 minutes at 400°F. This test is designed to see how well the oven cooks denser frozen foods without burning the outside. We’ve all bitten into what appears to be perfectly browned, previously frozen food only to find it still frozen in the middle. Not fun.

In our Jamaican patty test, all ovens heated frozen patties through the center, but the Breville and Balmoda produced the best browning on the outer pastry crust. The hand pie that came out of the Balmuda oven (see below) was almost overcooked (and maybe it is for some people), but that’s just how I like it.

And FlashXpress only slight I overcooked the pie, while Cruxgg burned it beyond being edible. while everyone Both ovens produced meat pies that were hot in the middle, and the lowest external roasting came from the Hamilton Beach and Oster roasters. Not surprising, considering that both ovens ran cold in our temperature consistency and accuracy test.

Toaster and display buttons

I’ve found that toaster ovens with digital displays are the easiest to program since you’re dialing in your preferred doneness level on a six- or seven-point scale instead of guessing with a timer knob. My favorite display was Breville’s Mini Smart Oven, which was simple and easy to use with dials that precisely adjusted cooking time for both doneness and number of slices. This model also has a “More” button and a Cooling mode to stop cooking faster. I also liked the Panasonic FlashXpress display, which is a bit simpler than the Breville with fewer special modes but more programs for specific items like frozen pies, frozen pizza, and even hash browns.

In fact, I don’t find toaster oven cooking programs very useful, and I rarely use them. Since each brand, whether frozen pizza, waffles, or mozzarella sticks, varies in size and density, it’s generally best to follow the instructions on the box.

My least favorite display was the Oster’s display, which had one-dimensional rear buttons and a wonky digital display that offered very little information. Often times, the buttons do not interact and require a hard press, sometimes twice. This very cheap Comfee toaster has manual dials and no display. It is difficult to precisely adjust the manual dials for temperature and time. They often make a ticking sound as well, which can be annoying.

The easiest toasters to clean

This wasn’t a cooking test so much as a cleaning test, but one that is near and dear to my heart. Each toaster oven comes with an aluminum baking sheet with a non-stick coating, but some are easier to clean than others. Since these sheets are mostly installed on the oven, you’re stuck using that sheet until you replace the entire toaster, so it’s a good idea to have it come clean and not stain or collect dirt after just a few sessions.

After the pizza was done cooking, there was inevitably some spilled sauce and cheese left on the sheet. I allowed the pan to cool enough to handle without gloves, then scrubbed vigorously for 1 minute with a sponge, hot water, and dish soap. The easiest baking sheets to clean belong to the Breville Mini Oven (which is black, so that probably helps), the Panasonic FlashXpress and the Comfee Toaster.

The trays that came with the Hamilton Beach toaster and the GE toaster remained dirtier after a minute of cleaning, while the rest fell somewhere in the middle.

Toaster oven specifications

	Comfy CFO-BB101	Hamilton Beach 31128	Oster TSSTVMNDG-SHP-2	Panasonic Flash Express NB-G110P	Breville Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL	Crocsg Navy 14985	GG G9OAAASSPSS	Balmuda, the toaster
Power draw (watts)	1000	1400	1300	1300	1800	1800	1200	1300
Settings	Toast, bread, grill	Bread, grill, toast, pizza, convection	Toast, bake, convection, grill, warm, pizza	Toast, waffle, roll, quick, hash brown, pizza	Toast, Roast, Bake, Roast, Reheat, Pizza Cookies, Baking	Toast, bake, air fry, grill, bake, pizza, biscuits, dehydrate, reheat, reheat	Air Fry, Toast, Grill, Convection, Warm, Resist, Roast	Toasts, artisan bread, pastries, pizza
Toast time is average	4:15	4:40	6:00	2:30	3:00	4:00	4:40	2:30
External dimensions	14.6 x 11.4 x 8	15 x 19 x 9	20 x 16 x 11	12 x 13 x 10	16 x 14.25 x 8.5	11.5 x 18 x 15	16 x 17 x 14	14 x 13 x 8
Weight (pounds)	7.68	13	20	7.5	15	16	21	10
Main features	no one	Folding door	Large capacity	Infrared heating	Delicate roasting	Place the air fryer	Place the air fryer	Steam is used
colors	Black, white	ashen	black	silver	silver	Black, white	silver	Black, cream, grey, tan
a guarantee	1 year	1 year	1 year	1 year	1 year	1 year	1 year	1 year