Corner to corner, no other oven was as consistent (aside from the exorbitantly priced Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven). Similarly priced large toaster ovens (like ones from Breville and KitchenAid) concentrated heat in the center of the oven and had more significant fall-off of heat toward the edges. Additionally, as a Japanese appliance, the Panasonic FlashXpress is designed around degrees Celsius for temperature input.
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. The FlashXpress’s one annoying quirk is that you can’t add time or change the temperature midway through a preset cooking cycle (although you can change the toast shade settings). This means you have to turn the Panasonic off and back on again to adjust it. That said, the controls are clearly labeled and straightforward to use, so we’re willing to overlook this drawback.
How well the toasters or toaster ovens produced a range of light to dark toast. Of course, since rotisserie is in this product’s name, I had to test out that function—on birds up to 5 pounds, which is the oven’s limit. The most difficult thing about cooking a rotisserie chicken is tying it and getting it balanced on the spit so it can spin properly. Once I accomplished that, the rotisserie worked well, and the chicken cooked evenly.
It can also fit a 12-cup muffin tin (ours measured 14 by 10.75 inches) or a 9-by-13-inch baking pan (without handles). The Cuisinart has four slots for the racks, with metal hooks that pull out the middle rack when the door is opened. It was one of the fastest models to preheat to 350 °F, taking just over three minutes. Some brands will advertise the material of their toaster oven’s heating elements, and generally, ovens using quartz or ceramic will cost more than those using Calrod. But in all our research and testing, we didn’t see consistent correlations between element type and either price or performance.
It comes with two oven racks so you can cook more food at once—an addition we appreciate with the Cuisinart too. It also comes with an air fry/dehydrate basket rack and a broiling rack that fits inside its enamel roasting pan. But we still prefer the Cuisinart’s ceramic pizza stone over the Breville’s nonstick pizza pan (though Breville does sell a pizza stone separately for around $30). As in other toaster oven air fryers, a shallow basket is provided for air frying food in a single layer. We were very happy with the browning and crisping on breaded chicken breasts. Brussels sprouts and frozen crinkle fries came out lightly browned and crisped.
Depending on the household, it can fill a surprisingly wide gap between the microwave and a traditional oven. Need your snacks warmed up quickly, but hate that microwave sogginess? Need your potatoes, pies or side dishes baked while your main course is taking up the oven? The toaster oven is a perfect solution, and it does all that while using less power.
We found its performance and features to be comparable to those of larger and pricier toaster ovens. If you get a toaster oven with a convection setting, you can also use it for air frying (air frying is, after all, just convection baking). While the fan isn’t quite as powerful as the ones in most pod-shaped air fryers or air fryer toaster ovens, it produces similar results. That’s because a toaster oven can fit more food at once, and in our experience it cooks more evenly.
If your kitchen is so active that the oven is often full, you can use the toaster oven as Martha Rose Shulman—chef and author of The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking—does. When she runs out of room, she told us, she turns to the toaster oven to make gratins, lasagna, and sandwiches. The majority of hamilton beach juicers have simple dial controls, but some high-end models have touchpad controls with a digital display. Although dials might seem a little outdated, they’re extremely simple to use and little can go wrong with them. Of course, touchpad controls have their benefits too, such as giving you more precise temperature control and being quick to use once you get the hang of them.
You’ll save lots of cooking time—the convection mode in this toaster oven cooks food up to 25% faster by circulating heated air evenly around food as it cooks. When compared to all of our other cooking and baking tests, we feel the Easy Reach hamilton beach juicer 4-Slice is best at toasting. However, the back-left side of the oven routinely toasted a little lighter than the rest of the oven. Should you encounter any problems with the FlashXpress under its one-year warranty, contact Panasonic.