I have a confession. As a professional food writer, I love to cook, and I do it a lot, but in the last year… I have not turned on my “real” oven once. My oven is great for storing muffin tins and cake pans, but I have come into ownership of a highly advanced toaster oven (namely, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro — although as you’ll see below, I’ve personally tested many others) that simply does the work better. It’s just that ovens aren’t always particularly good at being ovens; they can take forever to come to temperature, and then often fail to hold that temperature accurately. They are finicky, temperamental, and most importantly, too large. For context, I live alone, but I can count the number of times I’ve roasted a whole turkey on no hands.
But! This is not to say that I don’t roast or bake. This week alone, I’ve braised pork in chili verde, made blueberry muffins from scratch, toasted many slices of toast, broiled mackerel, roasted all manner of vegetables, and baked either Bagel Bites or chocolate chip cookies every single night. And I did it all in my toaster oven. Once considered a bachelor essential or dorm-room staple, the toaster oven is now a do-it-all kitchen workhorse, capable of everything from reheating leftover pizza to melty-mozz perfection to intuitively making frozen hash browns perfectly crispy. They can air-fry, steam, roast, and bake. What a wonderful, miraculous machine.
We’re in the golden age of the toaster oven. So golden, in fact, that it can be tough to choose the right model. I put five of the most popular, well-reviewed, “best” toaster ovens to the test over the past two months, and I can confidently say that each and every one impressed me — albeit in different ways. For this ultimate guide to the modern toaster oven, I’ve taken the guess work out of it for you, reader, and found the perfect oven for every budget, kitchen esthetic, and cooking requirement.
Read on!
Now, let’s meet our toaster ovens.
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro: The power user’s dream
If you’re the kind of home cook who needs the duck breast skin to brown just as the gratin finishes baking, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is for you. This appliance is more than just a toaster oven — it’s a full-fledged countertop sous chef. With its Element IQ system, multiple heating elements adjust dynamically to ensure even cooking, whether you’re baking cookies, roasting a chicken, or dehydrating fruit. The air fryer function is solid — though not quite as efficient as a dedicated air fryer — and the overall capacity is large enough to fit a 13-inch pizza or a 9” x 13” pan.
Some of the bells and whistles are more impressive than others. The Breville’s convection setting has become my go-to method for crispy-skinned chicken, but I found the app-assisted smart cooking sensors more trouble than they were worth, and deleted the app within days of unboxing the oven.
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And of course, all this power comes with a footprint (and a price tag) to match. The Breville is big—you’re going to need some serious counter space for it. And while it’s incredibly versatile, it might be overkill if you just want to toast some bread and reheat leftovers. But if you want a toaster oven that can handle everything from leftover pizza to a small Thanksgiving dinner with ease, then this is the best all-around option.
Pros:
- A big capacity
- Smart features make cooking with precision a breeze
- Can do it all: toasting, roasting, broiling, air-frying and on and on…
Cons
- She’s a beast, and takes up a lot of countertop real estate
- The price tag, you get what you pay for but this oven is not cheap
- App integration has potential, but I didn’t find it super useful
Our Place Large Wonder Oven: The stylish statement piece
Let’s be honest: a lot of toaster ovens look, at best, utilitarian. The Our Place Wonder Oven, on the other hand, looks like something you’d happily leave out on the counter in a Silver Lake show kitchen. Available in Our Place’s signature earthy color palette and two sizes, standard and large, it’s clearly designed for people who prioritize aesthetics as much as functionality.
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Beyond the looks, it has a wide range of functions, from baking and broiling to air frying, and it delivers solid (if not standout) performance across the board. However, compared to some of the more specialized options, it doesn’t quite excel in any one area.
The oven gets hot fast and stays that way, but doesn’t have intuitive options for preheating or more advanced temperature controls, so my fellow testers and I found it prone to slight overcooking. All that fast, powerful heat did serve the air-frying function, which was the best of the bunch.
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Also, the Wonder Oven is the only oven aside from the Balmuda (see below) to offer a steaming function, but I found it less effective than the Balmuda in this regard, and the setting is touted by Our Place as an option for heating up leftovers more than for baking.
It’s also not the most budget-friendly machine on our list, so you’re paying a premium for the design as much as the performance. If looks matter as much as function, though, this is a great pick.
Pros:
- This is one stylish oven, available in several attractive colors that add countertop panache
- The large Wonder Oven has the largest capacity, alongside the Breville, of all the ovens we tested
- Great for leftovers
- Versatile bake, broil, and air fry features
- The steam feature sets it apart from other multifunction ovens
Cons
- Pricey for its performance
- Lacks preheat and other smart functions
- Our Place’s signature aesthetic is not for everyone
If you believe toast is more than just a vehicle for peanut butter, the Balmuda “The Toaster” might be your new obsession. This sleek Japanese toaster uses a steam function to keep bread crispy on the outside and incredibly soft on the inside—perfect for Japanese-style toast, which is typically thick-cut and lightly crisped on the exterior while staying pillowy in the middle. It’s also fantastic for reheating pastries and baked goods (even croissants!), reviving them to bakery-fresh status.
The trade-off? It’s expensive for what it is. This isn’t an all-purpose toaster oven—it’s just a front-loading toaster, albeit a very, very good one. If you want something that can bake, air fry, and do a dozen other things, look elsewhere. But if you want perfect toast every time, this is the ultimate luxury pick.
There’s also something ineffably charming about this toaster. I just like having it around. It doesn’t beep like a vulgar Western toaster oven; it chirps and clicks and bonks. And it has a kind of inviting formality, not like a gala, but like a luxury train car. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but I always picture the Balmuda wearing a tiny little uniform, offering friendly service with a smile.
