If you’re aiming to save counter space, minimize spending, or prepare smaller portions of food at a time, a pod-shaped air fryer is still worth considering. If you’re seeking a regular toaster oven without a dedicated air fryer setting, we also have a guide to toaster ovens.
Our recommendation
This expensive oven stands out by performing just as well on air fryer duties as it does on toaster oven tasks. It also features settings for bread proofing, slow cooking, and dehydrating.
If you want a combination appliance that can air fry, as well as toast bread, bake treats, or roast larger quantities of food, we recommend the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. Among all the air fryers and toaster ovens we’ve tested, it’s one of the very few models that effectively combines the best of both types of machines.
This Breville appliance is distinctive in that it offers two convection-fan speeds for more control, unlike most pod-shaped air fryers, as well as the power to quickly crisp up food compared to other models in this category.
Its two-rack oven capacity is quite large, and it comes with a few additional settings: proof, reheat, cookies, slow cook, and dehydrate.
However, if speed isn’t a major priority, or if you don’t anticipate making use of those added features, you’re likely to be just as satisfied with our runner-up pick, the Cuisinart Chef’s Convection Toaster Oven TOB-260N1, which costs significantly less and delivers similar results in just a little extra time.
Runner-up
This model offers mostly the same features as our main pick, but its convection fan isn’t quite as powerful. We recommend saving some cash and getting this model if speed isn’t a big priority.
The Cuisinart Chef’s Convection Toaster Oven TOB-260N1 is our long-standing toaster oven pick, but it also does a good job of air frying (even though Cuisinart doesn’t advertise it as an air fryer). It delivers results similar to what you can get from the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro, but it costs significantly less. It doesn’t have a dedicated “air fry” setting or an air frying basket, but as long as you know that speed convection equals air frying, you don’t really need those things to make an air fryer recipe in this appliance.
Like the Breville model, this Cuisinart toaster oven has two oven racks and two convection-fan speeds, but its fan is a bit less powerful, so it takes slightly longer to achieve the same level of crispiness. However, it can still do everything from roasting a beautifully golden-brown chicken to baking even cake layers.
The accessories are useful, too: This is the only model we’ve ever tested to include a ceramic pizza stone instead of a flimsy metal pizza pan.
The TOB-260N1 is slightly smaller in capacity than the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro, but it’s still large. This oven also lacks some of the tiny details (such as rack-position markings on the door) and settings (such as proof) that make our top pick feel more luxe.
Budget pick
This appliance shares many features of models costing twice as much. It doesn’t cook quite as evenly as our other picks, but its results in our tests were still decent, especially considering its relatively low price.
Though still expensive compared with regular toaster ovens, the Cosori Original Air Fryer Toaster Oven CO130-AO was the best-performing air fryer toaster oven we tested under $225. In our tests it didn’t cook as evenly as the Breville and Cuisinart models, but we found its results perfectly acceptable considering its lower price.
Like our other picks, the CO130-AO offers lots of useful settings beyond baking, toasting, and air frying, such as for cookies, dehydrating, and fermenting. Its rotisserie setting, however, failed to produce an evenly cooked chicken in our tests.
This Cosori air fryer toaster oven has two convection-fan speeds, like our other picks, and is roughly the same size as the Cuisinart model. It comes with only one oven rack, though its roasting pan can act as a second rack.
The package also includes a recipe booklet, which is nice if you’re looking for some guidance when cooking with convection technology.
