The Best Small Toaster Ovens Tested & Reviewed

Small toaster ovens and their size means that they can save the most energy, cooking time, and kitchen space in this line of products. Thus, they are ideal for serving one to two people living in small apartments or even mobile homes. But can some be better than others?

To answer this, we purchased top products on the market from popular brands like Breville, Cuisinart, Panasonic, Black+Decker, Hamilton, and more to put them through our curated tests.

And after testing for years, we found that the Breville Mini Smart Oven is the best to buy with its excellent cooking, high build quality, and high ease of use. If you want quick and easy cooking with an eye-catching design, the Panasonic FlashXpress is the one to go.

Nonetheless, small toaster ovens can only come so close to their larger counterparts in terms of cooking results. So if that’s what you’re looking for, feel free to check out our list of the best toaster ovens.

Everything We Recommend

Breville Mini Smart Toaster Oven

Best to Buy

This oven is the fastest at toasting bread and the best at roasting chicken wings, thanks to its high wattage and compact design. With durable build quality, easy cleanup, and unique features like a Temperature Conversion button, it's the best choice for small kitchens.

Panasonic FlashXpress Toaster Oven

Quick and Easy

This oven can cook your food in the shortest time possible thanks to its quartz and ceramic heating elements, high wattage, and small cooking chamber. Its auto-pull rack and cooking presets are also helpful for homecooks who just want to get things done.

Mueller MT-175 Small Countertop Toaster Oven

Best Value

This oven offers exceptional value with its overall great performance and budget-friendly price, excelling at making toast and pizza. Its compact size, energy efficiency, and ease of use make it a great option for serving one or two people while saving counter space.

How We Test

To evaluate the performance of small toaster ovens, we tested four dishes that require different functions and temperatures. Each test used food of the same size, weight, and starting temperature for consistency.

1. Toast: We aimed for the perfect medium toast—crispy, golden brown on the outside, soft and moist inside—then scored two consecutive batches based on color and taste.
2. Pizza: We baked a 9-inch thick-crust meat pizza at 450°F to a golden crust with melted cheese, evaluating cooking time, crust, toppings, and overall taste. We adjusted the standard for cooking time compared to large ones since small toaster ovens tend to be less powerful.
3. Roasted Chicken Wings: We roasted 10 middle-joint chicken wings at 400°F to golden brown perfection with crispy skin, and then assessed its cooking time, skin, and flavor after checking doneness with a meat thermometer.
4. Baked French Fries: We baked 12 oz of frozen fries at 400°F to a golden crispy outside and moist inside, grading them on cooking time, texture, and taste.

The Design features of a small toaster oven in need of evaluation can be condensed to its exterior, interior, and build quality. And we made sure to take into account that smaller units often have less structural features, specifically a convection system and interior light.

And during the cooking sessions, we were able to tell the Usability of said features, including user control, ease of use, and cleanability. Similar to above, small toaster ovens also often lack convenient features including a cooking status bar, by-the-digit time and temperature adjustments, automatic features, and so on.

Check out full How We Test and Score Our Small Toaster Ovens for more information.

How We Choose

Our list is based on test outcomes from toasting bread, baking pizza, roasting chicken wings, and air-frying fries. Additionally, we evaluate the brand’s popularity, customer service (including warranty period), feedback from users with firsthand experience, and the price of the ovens.

Breville Mini Smart Toaster Oven

Best to Buy

This oven is the fastest at toasting bread and the best at roasting chicken wings, thanks to its high wattage and compact design. With durable build quality, easy cleanup, and unique features like a Temperature Conversion button, it's the best choice for small kitchens.

$154.13

(Price at time of publish)

Check Price on AmazonCheck Price on BrevilleCheck Price on Walmart

Toasting bread is the primary use of a toaster oven and the Breville Mini has the highest score in the small category, on par with some larger ones. Thanks to its high wattage, this oven has the fastest cooking time for toast among the toaster ovens we’ve tested thus far.

At toast level 4, the Breville produced 4 slices with mottled light golden to golden-brown color which looked quite appetizing. The color was not evenly distributed due to the oven’s lack of a convection system, though.

The first batch of toast was nicely crispy outside while still soft and moist inside. Our head chef, Tuyet Pham, determined they would go well with pretty much anything including an omelet, eggs benedict, and particularly sandwiches.

Even though the oven automatically adjusted the timer to 2 minutes 36 seconds, the color of the second batch was a bit darker. However, the increased crispiness made it more suitable for soup.

The oven also holds the record in roasting chicken wings and baking fries. With only 20 minutes on each side at 350°F, the 10 middle-joint wings had a nice caramelized color, crispy skin, and ideal doneness to maintain the juiciness of the meat.

On a side note, you can absolutely fit a couple more wings on the tray if that’s what you want. For the fries however, we’d recommend cranking the temperature up to 450°F for an even better result than our tested 400°F.

The oven was slightly lacking when it came to baking pizza though it was still acceptable. We hypothesized that there were some heating inconsistencies in the elements due to the oven’s smart heating algorithms.

Design-wise, the brushed exterior of the Breville BOV450XL is made from durable stainless steel. It’s equipped with a slide-out crumb tray and tray-level indicators on the glass door. The baking pan has an enamel coating for easy cleaning but is a bit smaller than the oven rack.

The oven’s cooking chamber has a non-toxic non-stick coating and is larger than most small toaster ovens. Its four infrared quartz heating elements are sufficiently powered with 1800 W of power.

Usability-wise, it was very easy to clean inside and outside the oven as well as its accessories. In addition to the standard cooking functions, the Breville Mini includes some nice presets for cookies, pizza, and reheating. The digital display along with the function dial made it simple to readjust the cooking setting during operation.

Regarding the oven's unique features, we thought the Temperature Conversion button was helpful, particularly for international consumers. Unfortunately, the FROZEN FOODS and A BIT MORE buttons didn’t prove to be very useful.

Read our full Breville Mini Smart Toaster Oven in-depth review

Panasonic FlashXpress Toaster Oven

Quick and Easy

This oven can cook your food in the shortest time possible thanks to its quartz and ceramic heating elements, high wattage, and small cooking chamber. Its auto-pull rack and cooking presets are also helpful for homecooks who just want to get things done.

$153.64

(Price at time of publish)

Check Price on AmazonView on PanasonicCheck Price on Walmart

The Panasonic FlashXpress was the one to come the closest to the Breville in our Roasted Chicken Wings test. In the same amount of time, the skin was even crispier and browner. However, we’d recommend decreasing the temperature slightly from our tested 400°F to maintain more moisture in the meat.

The oven also holds the record for the shortest pizza-baking time across our tested toaster ovens at only 3 minutes sharp. However, we’d recommend lowering the temperature from our tested 450°F to around 430°F since the crust was cooked too fast to have any color and the toppings of onions, bell peppers, and meat were slightly burnt.

Unfortunately, our toast test revealed a shortcoming of uneven heat distribution, probably due to the Panasonic’s short cooking time. To top it off, we already chose the lowest Toast shade possible, any higher and the toast would have been too dark.

Design-wise, the Panasonic NB-G110P has a high build quality worthy of its price. The oven has unique features including an auto-pull rack and preset cooking functions. Keep in mind that while the auto-pull rack was a convenient feature, it effectively reduced the available cooking space.

Usability-wise, the cooking presets allow you to simply choose what you want and let the oven take care of the rest. Honestly though, we’d prefer the ability to adjust by the minute and degree like Breville.

Read our full Panasonic FlashXpress Toaster Oven in-depth review

Mueller MT-175 Small Countertop Toaster Oven

Best Value

This oven offers exceptional value with its overall great performance and budget-friendly price, excelling at making toast and pizza. Its compact size, energy efficiency, and ease of use make it a great option for serving one or two people while saving counter space.

$64.55

(Price at time of publish)

Check Price on AmazonCheck Price on Walmart

The Mueller came in second to the Breville in terms of overall performance despite having no digital controls and even excelled in baking pizza. The oven took 9 minutes to bake a 9-inch thick-crust meat pizza at 450°F, which wasn’t the fastest but the crust had a golden color all the way through and the inside was still moist. If only the crust was a bit more crispy, it would’ve gotten a higher score.

The toppings were also caramelized quite evenly from the meat and veggies to the cheese. The cheese was nicely melted but the areas closer to the back of the cooking chamber were more caramelized compared to the rest.

When it came to our Toast test, the Muller also kept up nicely to the Breville. The first batch of toast at 4 minutes had pretty good surface color as well as texture, and the second batch right after showed more evenness.

After 4 minutes of toasting, the four pieces of toast had pretty good surface color. However, the colors varied from light golden to golden brown on both the top and the bottom.

Luckily, the varied colors partially meant varied textures which were all good. The golden brown areas had a more crispy outside while the light golden areas had a softer inside. Our head chef Tuyet Pham determined that it would go great with omelets, eggs benedict, and sandwiches but not so much with soup.

Under the identical toasting time, the second batch became brown with an increased evenness from the first batch. While the color was a bit darker than ideal, the extra crispiness made the second batch more suitable for soups.

The Mueller’s design is small, lightweight, and easy to operate with its analog control knobs. In addition, it can save energy with its 1100 W of power and two quartz heating elements. However, this can lead to a lower performance in foods that require a stable and high temperature like baking frozen fries.

When it comes to usability, the oven has a detachable crumb tray which is useful for cleaning, especially for a unit this size. And with such a low price, we don’t expect it to have many convenient features.

Read our full Mueller MT-175 Small Countertop Toaster Oven in-depth review

Nearest Competitions

1. Hamilton Beach 31401 — A basic, lightweight, and small-sized toaster oven. With 1200 Watts of power and two quartz heating elements, it saves energy but left a lot to be desired in cooking foods for our performance tests. At least, it’s easy to use and clean.

2. COMFEE CFO-BB101 — A budget toaster oven to save your countertop space. It also minimizes energy consumption with a power rating of 1000 W and two quartz heating elements. These specifications greatly hindered its performance score, though.

Our Expertise

Alan Nguyen is a reviewer for Shouldit. With a background in both restaurant and military kitchens, he brings his passion for home-cooked meals and expertise in using a wide range of cooking equipment, from delicate portions to bulk cooking.

In collaboration with Shouldit's Research, Testing, and Review (RTR) Lab, Alan embarked on the mission to identify the best toaster ovens. They examined hundreds of options before selecting 19 unique models for a series of comparative tests focused on cooking performance, design, and user-friendliness. You can follow their journey through a video series if you prefer watching.

The performance tests took about 90 hours to develop and execute, involving toasting over 50 packs of white bread (over 500 slices!), baking more than 20 nine-inch pizzas, roasting 20 three-pound whole chickens, and cooking over 15 pounds of frozen french fries.

Ultimately, the team identified top choices tailored to various budgets, culinary purposes, and home interiors.