When you have the best oven, you quickly realize that it is the most versatile small kitchen appliance in your home.There was a time when toasters could only reheat leftovers, toast and tuna to melt, but the device has evolved a lot over the years.For some, a high-end oven can completely eliminate the desire to use a full-size oven.Thanks to the addition of a convection fan, many can now also be used as air fryers, enabling you to get crispier waffles, hash browns, and french fries.Still, with so many enhanced styles on the market, choosing one can be daunting.
We tested different models at a range of price points and found a clear winner (though we admit it was more of a toaster than a toaster), but there are a few models that perform well in both countertop convection ovens and more traditional ovens, Some of them are at a fraction of the price.
Read on to see our top picks, as well as details on how we tested and what to look for in an oven, scroll down.
The best overall toasterBest affordable toasterHow we tested What we looked forOther toasters we testedTakeaway
The bottom line with a joule oven is that it may be more of a machine than some people need, but it’s a machine.It’s both an upgraded version of our previous winner, the Breville Smart Oven Compact Convection, as well as the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro.It has all the basic features of the Smart Oven Compact Convection, such as a countdown timer for toasting and smart features like Element IQ, which uses built-in sensors to automatically adjust the heat.During testing, it produced perfectly consistent toast and passed the pizza test with flying colors (it comes with a setting specifically for frozen pizza, but also has the ability to bake fresh).But the Joule’s smart features were inspired by the hardcore culinary nerds of Chefsteps, who, along with Breville, created the Joule Oven.Use the autopilot feature in the oven app (which also alerts you when the oven is preheating or when cooking is over) the oven automatically changes temperature during baking and roasting.It also automatically switches between different heating elements for grilling, bottom cooking and convection.Not only does it cook the drumsticks with the perfect crispy skin, but with a range of variations between roasting and broiling, it mimics a whole roasted chicken nicely.It made cookies that were soft in the middle but browned on the bottom, and, just because we wanted to see what it could do, found it could handle more complex items like a whole grilled fish or lasagna.Joule Oven is also proficient at air-frying potatoes—it even makes dehydrating kale chips and can be used as a bread proofing drawer.That’s what really makes the Joule our top pick: its versatility.If you’re in a pinch – your gas has stopped working or your oven is broken – this may be your only cooking utensil.
The two downsides to the Joule oven, as you might guess from the so many things it can do, are its price and its size.At the time of writing, it’s $499, but then again, it’s available for three or four devices.In terms of size, it’s 21.5 x 17.3 x 12.8.It’s basically the size of a microwave.But honestly, if you have a countertop microwave, you should consider replacing it with one of these.
Try not to anthropomorphize this quirky infrared-powered oven with its R2-D2 vibe and cube proportions.Measuring 12x13x10.25 inches, it takes up significantly less counter space than the Breville, but is designed for visibility—controls, including oven lights, run along the bottom, and the door is at the top, a place to put Food functions closer to eye level.The lights also turn on and off during use, as if the oven were chatting with you.
The most notable feature of the Panasonic is the dual infrared heating, which significantly speeds up the cooking time.Our loaves were dark brown in under two minutes, and the frozen pizza came out crispy and melted on the preset pizza settings.The bottoms of the cookies were browned, but due to the accelerated “ability” of the oven, they had to be removed before specifying the recipe.While the Panasonic Grilled Chicken was beautiful, the splatter of fat did create a worrying sizzle and a little bit of smoke.(This may be partly our fault because we didn’t follow the manufacturer’s instructions for wrapping the meat in foil before cooking.)
There is only one groove for positioning the grill, which eliminates guesswork as to where it should be used for different cooking functions.Another nice feature: the rack attaches to the door, so it pops out automatically when you check food, no need to pull it out with oven-gloved hands.
The Panasonic has a few little things to get used to: Temperatures are measured in degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit, but Celsius is clearly favored because there are 355ºF or 390ºF settings instead of the more standard 350ºF or 375ºF.The timer only goes up to 25 minutes, so if you want to cook longer, you’ll need to set it more than once, which is the case with roast chicken.After several years of testing, the Panasonic has maintained its position as our favorite smaller, more affordable oven—but only by a mile.Its main competitor, the Hamilton Beach Stainless 4-Slice Toaster, has an easier-to-navigate interface.Panasonic relies on buttons with images of foods it suspects you’ll be making (eg, toast or frozen pizza) and arrows that allow you to adjust browning, time, and temperature.Hamilton Beach uses an intuitive, no-nonsense dial to select temperature, functions (toast, toast, bake) and time.Ultimately, it comes down to performance.For example, baking cookies from frozen dough balls takes nearly 20 minutes in the Hamilton Beach model and 14 minutes in the Panasonic model.Overall, the Hamilton Beach was efficient and the toast browned evenly and quickly, but the Panasonic was slightly better.
The oven can bake, toast, toast, defrost, and of course, brown bread.To assess these multitasking capabilities, we prepared the following foods:
We start by toasting two slices of bread on the medium setting of each machine.Immediately after the first round, we filled each toaster rack to maximum capacity (four to six slices, depending on the size of the oven) to see how evenly the two batches of different sizes were toasted, and how well the Is there any residual hot air affecting the second round.We also timed how long it took to bake the bread on the medium setting.If it bakes quickly and well, the machine gets points.If it takes significantly longer than average or delivers sub-par results, that’s a demerit.But most of all, we’re always looking for machines that can bake consistently.
We cooked our personal freezer pizzas according to the directions on the box.If the oven has a preset “pizza” setting, we use that.If not, we set the temperature control manually, or use the broiler setting.For machines without preheat settings, we heated each machine for five minutes before baking.
We make chocolate chip cookies from scratch, divide them and freeze overnight.Then we baked four to a rack the next day.For the pizza and cookie tests, we used the baking sheets that came with their respective ovens.
For those who did well in the first three tests, we roasted a chicken thigh and leg, basted in olive oil only, and seasoned with salt and pepper.
Among the machines listed as an air fryer-toaster combo, we also tried crispy mashed potatoes and chicken tenders.
We wanted an oven that could handle back-to-back toast without burning and produce an even color on both sides of the loaf.When reheating frozen pizza, we want a crispy bottom, evenly melted cheese and a browned crust.For cookies, we want melty interiors, golden exteriors, and crisp edges.When roasting chicken, we look for crisp, golden skin and juicy meat.We considered its efficiency, ease of use, design and aesthetics.
Before being replaced by the Breville Joule, the Breville Smart Oven Compact Convection was our long-standing product test winner thanks to its consistency, ease of use, and thoughtful features (like the Fahrenheit to Celsius converter, a button you’re cooking frozen food and there’s an indicator showing how long the cook or bake cycle will last so you don’t have to wait (who knows how long your toast will take).It toasts evenly without any surprises, but for color we recommend setting it a notch or two above the medium setting of 4.Browning takes three and a half to four minutes, and within the range of other countertop ovens we’ve tested, baking times range from two to five minutes.It also yielded consistent results in other tests: biscuits were golden on top, browned on bottom, and soft on the inside; frozen pizza had evenly melted cheese; and chicken was baked to crispy perfection.The Breville gives the user more control than any other oven we’ve tested, save for Joules.The digital display asks questions to help fine-tune the task at hand, such as how many slices of toast we made and how dark we want them to be.Buttons and dials clearly communicate their function, and written prompts on the oven door indicate where to place the racks based on what we’re making.As the name suggests, this is a smart machine that helps you avoid burning your food.The oven has an intelligent mechanism (Element IQ) that self-regulates the heat, for example if you put bread in the oven to bake and it is still hot from a previous job.When cooking is complete, the oven will beep lightly and automatically shut down, eliminating the possibility of overcooked food.Breville claims the “smart” aspect of its oven is keeping the heat regulated or even even, as the sensors constantly adjust to maintain the proper temperature for the task at hand, whether manual or preset.With a 15x17x10 footprint, this compact oven is big enough to bake an 8×8 pan of brownies, cook a 12-inch pizza, or bake a large loaf of salmon, but small enough to be quite discreet.
The Oster High Capacity Countertop 6 Piece Digital Convection Oven is very large and has an incomprehensible interface – even the manual doesn’t specify the proper rack positions for the different functions.As for performance, the medium setting for the toast lasted up to 5 minutes and 15 seconds and caused the bread to burn.
Black + Decker’s 4-Slice Toaster Oven quickly and evenly toasts the first two slices, but toasts in the second round.It does a decent job considering its low price, but it runs hot and the design is a bit confusing.
The Cuisinart Convection Toaster Oven Air Fryer is relatively expensive, which is a real disappointment.This bulky machine feels and looks like a tank, and for the price, it lacks finesse.The timer is on the dial, which makes it hard to tell how long we’ve set it.It has a top-heavy design, the controls are set on the door, and the oven runs very hot.The medium setting for the toast lasted a full five minutes, the bread was charred and the cheese on the frozen pizza browned and puffed rather than melted.
We have high hopes for the Zojirushi ET-WMC22 oven, as the company’s other products are known for being dependable and dependable (the brand has won our rice cooker reviews several times).But the Zojirushi toaster was inconsistent, running so hot in the back that the parchment on which we baked the cookies started smelling of the campfire and browning.This made us nervous when cooking the chicken, possibly splattering oil, and we wrapped the whole leg in foil, as the instructions suggested – no crispy skin here, although it was certainly juicy and cooked evenly.A feature we love: The doors are fully removable, which makes thorough cleaning a breeze.
Instant Omni Pro: This thing is sleek and has an intuitive touchscreen interface, which is why it’s disappointingly underperforming.The toast was golden brown on medium setting but very crisp, like a giant melba toast.From cold, the oven takes 5 minutes and 50 seconds to bake on medium heat with a countdown timer set.The oven uses smart technology to adjust the cooking time based on the internal temperature, so the second round of toast takes less time.Unfortunately, the Omni Pro’s bake is really uneven.Also, any part of the bread that wasn’t directly under the heating element stayed white but still dried out and crispy.When baking, there doesn’t seem to be an option to turn off the fan, which is very frustrating because the constant airflow constantly blows areas of the parchment paper that aren’t pinned down by the cookies towards the heating element, which is very concerning.However, it did bake the cookies in just 5 minutes instead of 10, but their browning was uneven and speckled, like a bad spray tan.Likewise, a frozen pizza that was supposed to take 20 minutes to bake only took 10 minutes, but the edges became very dark before the pizza reached an internal temperature of 165°F.In fact, when the pizza looked done, about seven minutes later, the center of the pizza was still only 130°F.Air frying is another matter entirely.We tested mashed potatoes and tender chicken separately, and both came out crispy and deep golden brown after the respective manufacturer’s recommended cooking times.We were a little surprised by this because the air fryer basket just sits on the included baking sheet.Oddly, it’s not clear whether the basket should be placed on a baking sheet or a rack – neither the accompanying instructions nor the Instant’s website mention this.In fact, one of the most frustrating parts of this testing experience comes from the manual, which claims you can visit Instantappliances.com/omnipro18 for the full manual, recipes, and more.But when we type it in the browser’s address bar, it takes us to a 404 page.It’s also very difficult to find the Omni Pro on the company’s website, as the model isn’t listed on the Omni or Omni Plus.We had to search for “Omni Pro” using the Instant website’s search function to find it, and when we did, there was still no link to the full manual.Looking at customer reviews, it seems we’re not the only ones looking for the promised “full manual”.According to one user, they contacted customer service, who sent them a PDF of the user guide included in the box, much to the customer’s dismay.Finally, this oven is fairly limited in terms of accessories.The unit only comes with a rack, a frying basket, and a baking pan that slides into the same grooves as the rack.The pan was just a hair too wide, so every time we slid it into the oven it scratched the inside badly.This also makes it difficult to remove the pan after cooking due to thermal expansion, which can lead to further scratching.Looking at other customer feedback and other reviewers’ experiences, this seems to be a common problem.With the Instant’s reputation built on the success of the now-ubiquitous Instant Pot as well as its hefty price tag, we really expected more from this machine.While the Oster Digital RapidCrisp Air Fryer Oven baked more evenly than the Instant-brand model, on medium (4 seconds out of 7 on the setting) it took the longest of the three at 6 minutes and 30 seconds.Unlike the Ninja and Instant models, the Oster oven does not allow you to choose the number of slices.Despite the long cooking time, the bread didn’t dry out like it did in the instant oven.The two slices were nicely toasted, dark tan, and soft and chewy in the middle.However, when toasting six slices, the bread barely discolored even after cooking this long, only the two slices in the center of the oven were fully browned.When making multiple batches of toast in a row, the oven does reduce the cooking time by a few minutes after the first batch.Unfortunately, baking six slices while the oven is still hot yields the same pale result.It performs on par with the Ninja when it comes to cooking things like frozen pizza, grilled chicken, and baked goods.However, as soon as start was pressed, the oven started counting down and there was no built-in preheat function, so we found that we had to increase the cooking time by three minutes or so and then wait for the oven to put food in the oven to preheat.In terms of cooking performance, it produces pizzas with bubbly cheese and tan edges, moist chicken skin, and crackers that are golden on top and soft in the middle, all within their respective recommended cooking times.When it comes to air frying, the Oster performs just as well as other combi ovens, producing crispy, golden and well-done chicken tenders and mashed potatoes following their respective manufacturer’s instructions.The interface is simple and intuitive.It uses a dial to choose from nine functions, and buttons to toggle time and temperature, as well as start and cancel buttons, though this oven only lets you adjust the temperature in 25°F increments.When selecting features, there are no indicators telling us where to place the rack.This information is included in the instruction manual, but we prefer the convenience of other models.This Oster oven does not have an interior light, but the 12 function model does.One feature we found disappointing was the removable crumb tray.Rather than just slide out like the crumb tray in the Instant and Ninja models, we had to lift it up and take it out, which inevitably resulted in about half of the crumbs spilling onto the bottom of the oven, making cleanup very frustrating.
Although we don’t like it as much as the Breville, the Ninja Foodi is still a great air fryer/oven.Set four’s toast was dark brown, but still had some moist chewy bits in the middle.Like the Breville oven, this interface allows us to customize the cooking time based on the number of slices toasted and the desired degree of browning.When it comes to foods with short bake times, like cookies, we’re a little disappointed with preheating.The packaging says the machine warms up in 90 seconds, but we found it actually took longer, usually a minute or two, to reach the proper temperature.The cookie recipe we used called for a baking time of 10 to 12 minutes, but we found that it eventually took 13 to 14 minutes for the cookie to be tan on the edges, golden on top, and soft in the middle. Very satisfied with the air fryer function of this oven.Following their respective manufacturer’s instructions, we cooked the mashed potatoes and tender chicken in the oven and they were both perfectly crispy and golden brown.We use this feature to reheat a cold pizza delivered the night before – in just three minutes at 400°, you can make a reheated pizza that’s just as hot and fresh as the night before.Ninja claims this oven has two stages of cooking and browning, which should cook evenly and without the need to rotate the pan (which basically sounds like a retrofit convection setup), and we were pleasantly surprised to find that it actually worked. After we used the bake function After initial testing of cooking a pan of biscuits and a batch of chicken thighs, we wanted to test two-stage cooking.As advertised, we were able to bake two pans of evenly browned cookies without having to rotate them.Instead of roasting two pans of chicken, we wanted to test both Air Roast and two levels of functionality.We roasted the thighs for 25 minutes, then put a plate of cauliflower in the oven and tossed with oil, salt and pepper for the last 10 minutes of cooking time.The thighs were deep golden brown, the skin was crispy and the meat was juicy, while the broccoli was well roasted, tender and browned on the edges.
The Crux Artisan Series Digital Air Fryer Toaster Oven looks and operates very similar to a Breville oven, and is designed to function and perform similarly to the higher-end models in its range (excluding the Joule).It just wasn’t great.The convection fan has regular and turbo settings for the air fryer and comes with a removable air fryer basket and drip tray.The oven can also run for up to 24 hours, making extremely slow cooking and dehydration very feasible.While it performs very well, it doesn’t have the ElementIQ technology for more precise cooking on the Brevilles.The biggest complaint people have about this machine though – and one we’ve noticed too – is that the toaster beeps very loudly whenever you press a button or turn a knob, and there’s no way to turn it down or mute.Another problem we found: The knobs and buttons on the control panel are very sensitive, especially when the oven is hot.Say someone just used the toaster and you go to toast after them, the buttons might scroll through the settings too quickly and the cooking might start before you actually hit the start button.While this is easily fixed by pressing Cancel, it does seem to indicate a shortcut to build quality.So far, we have noticed that within a year of normal use, the LCD display image is slightly burnt on the side closest to the oven.
The Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro will do everything in its power to deliver consistent results.It’s also very forgiving and very easy to use.This is the best option if you have room in your kitchen for a countertop oven, prefer low-maintenance appliances, and don’t mind paying a little more for quality.If you’re looking for a compact oven at a lower price, look no further than the cheerful-looking Panasonic.
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Post time: Jul-13-2022