This article has been reviewed since its original publish date for accuracy, pricing and availability. Our best overall air fryer was updated in 2022 to the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. While the Sure Crisp Toaster Oven has a contemporary brushed chrome housing, it pretty much has the same design as toaster ovens from decades ago.
Toasters are good for more than just breakfast, however — these compact ovens can toast, bake, and broil and reheat with the best of them. After testing several models for speed and evenness, Panasonic’s speedy FlashXpress turned in the best overall stats to earn its spot as the best toaster in 2023. The Ultrean 4.2 Quart Air Fryer is one of the less expensive models we tested, and it happened to provide one of the least pleasant user experiences. The buttons were noisy and hard to press, and the basket was difficult to shove in without pushing the entire air fryer back on the counter.
This air fryer also isn’t as much of an eyesore as some machines we’ve tried over the years, so it won’t look like an alien spaceship has landed on your kitchen counter. Air fryer toaster ovens tend to look like larger versions of your classic toaster oven, but come with all the functionality of a toaster oven, air fryer and even roaster combined. If your countertop already houses a toaster oven and you’re wishing you had space for hamilton beach toaster oven an air fryer, consider this the ideal more-than-2-for-1 upgrade. This under-$125 model impressed us during testing, especially when it came to air frying. It has a basic control panel with three knobs that are easy to operate and a small footprint that’s still large enough to fit a 12-inch frozen pizza. In our tests, it was one of the few that was able to bake an evenly melted pizza in addition to making evenly colored toast.
The light setting delivered barely-there toasting while the dark setting produced proper dark pieces of toast without burning them. The Breville and Balmuda also nailed the light and dark toast cycles when I put them through their paces. The Panasonic FlashXpress’ well-calibrated dark toast setting delivered a proper dark without burning the bread.
Check out our favorite air-fried recipes like air fryer salmon flatbreads. And if you are looking for more multi-purpose kitchen appliances, we have a round-up of the best breakfast stations too. Even when filled to capacity, the Mini Vortex managed to cook food evenly. We were able to fit four large or five small wings in the basket, while larger models—like the Cosori Pro LE, which has a larger footprint and is visibly bulkier—can hold only two more. For example, when we reheated pizza, the Mini Vortex fit a large slice more comfortably than an air fryer with a deep basket, such as the Dreo Aircrisp Pro. The basket is easy to take out and put in, and the Mini Vortex was also the quietest of our three picks.
To help you find the right one for your needs, we’ve pulled together this list of the best air fryer toaster ovens. The Pro LE has seven preprogrammed settings, which is a bit overkill, especially since some of them aren’t that accurate (a common drawback with most air fryers). You may have to figure out the optimal settings for what you’re cooking by trial and error. We found it just as easy to set the time and temperature manually, following the instructions in our recipe or on the food packaging, then adjust the cook time as necessary. First, we toasted bread at every setting available and recorded how long it took and toasting progression between levels. Next, we tested the air fry function using 1 pound of frozen shoestring fries.
Pre-programmed settings and the ability to set cooking time and temperatures manually make it easy to cook a variety of foods, like steak, vegetables, baked goods and more. When your food is ready, nonstick cooking baskets remove for easy cleaning. The race for the overall best toaster oven was a true photo finish between the Panasonic FlashXpress and Breville’s capable Mini Smart Oven.
Sarah Holden, culinary producer for Food Network Kitchen, breaks down three of our top picks, above. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was ordering an air fryer. After all, the genius kitchen device makes it easy to cook crispy, fried foods in no time with less grease and oil. For example, the large glass door gives me easy visibility of the food I’m cooking and quick access to it as needed. It’s big enough the toast six slices of bread at once, or an entire 12″ pizza.
The Hamilton Beach, Panasonic’s FlashXpress and Breville Mini Smart Oven were among the top finishers with mostly even cooking and a solid medium color. To ensure the fat renders and the wings crisp, air fry chicken wings at two separate temperatures. It’s important to eat your veggies, and while there are many ways to cook them—the air fryer isn’t a good choice for leafy green vegetables, such as spinach, bok choy, Swiss chard, and kale. The one exception to this rule is that air fryers are great for making veggie chips from these types of vegetables. In February Cosori issued a recall of 21 air fryer models following incidents of them catching fire, melting, overheating, or smoking. Our budget pick, the Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer, isn’t part of the recall.