The 4 Best Toaster Ovens of 2024 Reviews by Wirecutter | gastroback

The number of slots should not affect the evenness or consistency of the bread that you’re toasting; the quality of toast from a two-slice toaster is just the same as a four-slice toaster. Two-slice toasters are also ideal because they’re lighter and easier to maintain and clean. The Hamilton Beach has a four-slice capacity and can fit up to a 9-inch pizza. The single rack and smaller size limit how much you can cook at once, but it’s a great fit for a dorm kitchen or small apartment. There are three knob controls for cook setting, temperature, and timer as well as an included oven rack and baking pan. It even has a designated bagel toasting feature, so you really do get the full functionality of a regular slice toaster in addition to the baking and broiling capabilities.

• The company also makes the decadent Toast Select Luxe, which has specific settings for different kinds of bread, including white bread, brown bread, grain, fruit, rye, and crumpet.
• The last thing you want is a large pile-up of stale crumbs burning at the bottom of your toaster.
• When we filled every slot, the four-slot model made slightly lighter toast than the two-slot, but you can easily fix this by turning up the toasting dial.
• We deemed the machine’s performance and consistency more important than those extra few seconds.
• If you’re a toast person, getting a great toaster can enhance the quality of your breakfast and, by extension, the quality of your day.
• A removable crumb tray makes it easy to clean up crumbs, and the toaster has a durable design.

Unlike the one on the Breville, the bagel setting on the Cuisinarts only adds time to the toasting cycle, without lowering the heat on the outside of the bagel. Although this browns a bagel better than a regular toasting cycle, the Breville’s thoughtfully designed, side-specific bagel setting produces a better bagel, with a crisp cut edge and a chewy middle. But it still has some of the pitfalls of cheaper toasters, so it may not last long enough to justify its high price. In our tests, we were impressed with how evenly and consistently bread was toasted.

Price

However, most households were unable to give that much for an appliance that simply toasts your bread slices. Due to this, four-slice toasters often appeared on the wedding registry of soon-to-be wedded couples. Other features, like the Revolution InstaGLO R180’s ability to automatically adjust the lift to the height of whatever is being toasted, are subtle but welcome touches. There’s even a smart reminder that displays on the screen when you need to empty the crumbs at the bottom, and the catch tray releases with a simple push. Whether the future is worth $350 is debatable, but Revolution InstaGLO R180’s smart features aren’t superfluous.

A luxe toaster oven for air frying

We praised the “easy to operate” control panel, which is situated on one of the long sides of the toaster. The roomy slot could handle every item we toasted and was big enough to fit two Pop-Tarts side-by-side. But with so many options available, it can be tricky to decide which toaster makes the most sense to buy. We recently tested more than 20 top-rated options from brands including All-Clad, Breville, KitchenAid, and Smeg to find out.

How the Breville BTA720XL Bit More Toaster has held up

If you find yourself with a toaster that doesn’t have a high-lift function, you can always get a pair of bamboo tongs. This way, you don’t have to worry about burning your fingers when it’s time to take your toast out. While it might go without saying, never stick metal tongs inside a toaster.