This Cuisinart Toaster Brilliantly Doubles As An Air Fryer To Save You Valuable Counter Space

The toaster oven is perhaps the most underrated appliance in your kitchen. Maybe that's because standard pop-up toasters (while sometimes helpful!) can be flimsy, unreliable, and offer poor heat distribution—problems that may tempt you to toss the gadget altogether. Toaster oven models, however, couldn't be a more different story: They offer a wide range of capabilities that make cooking not only easier, but more flavorful. And you don’t have to be part of the upper crust to own a good one.

We’re not just talking about perfectly-browned slices of toast. A good toaster oven will open the door to pizza tots, sweet potato casseroles, and more. Essentially mini convection ovens, toaster ovens are capable not only of browning hot dog and hamburger buns, but also baking, broiling, and air frying.

Not only that, but relying on a toaster oven could even reduce your energy bill and carbon footprint. According to Energy Star, “Cooking a meal in a toaster oven has the potential to save over 50 percent of the energy used to cook the same meal in a conventional electric oven.”

Is getting a toaster oven only one part of your dream kitchen setup? We’ve got you covered from start to finish—check out our recommendations for the best mini food processors to streamline your food prep, and when you’re done cooking up a storm, use these food storage containers to stow away and transport all those yummy leftovers.

Our top picks

How we picked these products

To find the best toaster ovens, we turned to our friends at the Good Housekeeping Institute, who have evaluated over 60 models in the past ten years alone. Their team of on-staff experts—which includes all types: engineers! data analysts! registered dietitians!—rigorously put everyday products to the test (and then more and more tests) in their New York City-based labs to determine which ones you can trust.

After identifying the best options based on availability and reputation, these kitchen tech experts put each toaster oven through rigorous testing to determine its overall capability when performing tasks like melting cheese on open-faced sandwiches, crisping up frozen foods, broiling steak, and yes, toasting bread. We then reviewed their results and notes on each toaster oven’s user-friendliness, design quality, clean-ability, number of rack positions offered, interior visibility, control panels, and audible alerts. Based on their findings, we’ve determined that these are the best toaster ovens you can buy in 2022.