If you’d like to air fry, but you just don’t have the space (or budget) for an air frying toaster oven, then a pod-shaped air fryer might be best for you. Because their small capacity keeps your food close to the fan and the heating elements, pod air fryers can make food even crispier, and often do so more quickly, than their toaster oven-shaped cousins. Their cooking baskets can also be a little safer or simpler to maneuver than a hot pan for children, new cooks, or black decker toaster oven those with mobility concerns. Just keep in mind that the pods tend to cook a little less evenly, and in most cases you’ll only be able to make a couple servings at a time. The nonstick coating in the baskets of pod-shaped air fryers are also likely to wear off within a few years, so you’ll need to replace either the basket or your entire machine. First, we toasted bread at every setting available and recorded how long it took and toasting progression between levels.
This toaster accommodates four slices of bread and shuts itself off at the end of the toasting cycle. We look for a crumb tray that slides out smoothly and that is easily accessible. For toaster ovens, most have a non-stick interior for easier cleaning. The Instant Vortex Plus 6-quart Air Fryer has impressed us time and time again as the best air fryer available.
In theory, it’s supposed to help keep the “inner moisture and flavor from escaping,” but we’re not convinced it makes a difference. In fact, we weighed white sandwich bread and rustic sourdough bread before and after toasting to see how much moisture the bread retained. On average, plain white sandwich bread actually retained less moisture when toasted in the Balmuda than when toasted in our top pick, the Cuisinart. Beyond performance, there are other features that set the Panasonic FlashXpress apart from the competition. Hooks on the door help eject the toaster’s wire rack, so you don’t have to reach your hand as far into the oven cavity to retrieve your food.
It also had a very noisy convection fan that sounded like it was struggling to operate with every rotation. We’ve read some user reviews regarding food catching fire in this oven. Though we never experienced this in over two years of long-term testing, always be sure to place food at least an inch from the heating element. Also, clean the heating element and the bottom of the unit before operating. An accumulation of crumbs and other food particles can burn and begin to smoke if not cleaned out regularly.
Some toaster ovens (ones with convection technology, like our larger pick) can even work with air frying recipes, though that may require some adjustments. But if you’re looking to do a lot of air frying in your toaster oven, you may want to check out our separate guide to air fryer toaster ovens. Knowing the volume of what you’ll want to cook in an air fryer is just as important as the type of food itself. If you’re slinging standard grocery store frozen fries, you can generally manage with 4 to 6 quarts, as long as you give them a good shake halfway through cooking. For more finicky recipes like homemade air fryer chicken wings and hand-cut fries, the more surface area inside your air fryer, the better. If the air isn’t circulating while it’s cooking, you’re not going to get the crispy, consistent results you’re looking for.
This can be annoying if you’re not quite ready to put your food in the oven, but we think it’s easy enough to adjust the timer once you’re ready. The timer on our upgrade pick, the Breville Pro, also begins counting down once the oven is preheated. However, it will pause the timer when you open the oven door, whereas the Cuisinart doesn’t. Should you encounter any problems black decker toaster oven with the FlashXpress under its one-year warranty, contact Panasonic. Unlike our other picks, Panasonic sells replacement parts for many of the oven’s components (including the heating elements, power button, and door handle). Keep in mind that a large toaster oven can be pretty heavy and is more cumbersome to move; this means it’s more likely to live on your counter.
Owner satisfaction ratings are based on the proportion of members who are extremely likely to recommend their toaster oven brand to their friends and family. Another option is to sell parts from your old appliances on Ebay or a local appliance repair shop. If you are mechanically inclined or have some knowledge with of appliances then you may decide to disassemble your old appliance to extract the parts. Items such as circuit boards, motors, or anything that could potentially need to be replaced and therefore would be of interest to someone who performs appliance repair.
While certainly not a high-performing gourmet machine, it still offers a lot of capabilities and conveniences a relatively inexpensive package. This combination makes it a great overall value for those shopping at the budget end of the spectrum. Keep in mind that the oven’s exterior gets hot to the touch quite quickly. In addition, it doesn’t turn off upon opening the door, unlike some others.
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB features simple operation but largely lacks some of the extra user-friendly touches that many more expensive models offer. It utilizes a simple control panel with one knob to set the temperature, one for the cooking time, and one dedicated to making toast. However, the lack of an LCD screen means you can never tell exactly what the temperature is nor exactly how much time is left on the timer. We like the crumb tray, which we found to slide out quite easily with little to no spillage. Fancier toaster ovens have special cooking modes including broil, roast, dehydrate and air fry. That said, the Ninja Foodi oven (from previous testing) came the closest to imitating those high-heat cooking methods with any type of success.
For my purposes, I toasted four slices of thin, white sandwich bread in each toaster oven on medium. The aim of this test was to see how evenly each oven toasts in all areas of the oven and how well-calibrated the medium toast setting is. Evenness is especially important when you’re making breakfast for a group. Ideally, you’ll want them all to come out looking as close to identical as possible. It also preheats extremely fast, holds the heat well and has intuitive controls.