Which toaster

We observed LED screens, timers, lever lifts that raise the toast higher out of the slots and push buttons that automatically lower and raise the food. We compared dings, beeps and the feeling you get from using and simply looking at the toaster in the kitchen to help determine the best of the best. Some may think that there are many ways to heat bread, bagels, and frozen waffles. An oven that can handle a Thanksgiving turkey can surely accommodate a couple of slices of bread and a pan over the stove can also toast bagels.

So, why even bother with a slot toaster? Slot toasters are the best and easiest way to make toast and a lot of other foods quickly and consistently. Making toast in the oven — or even in one of the winners from our review of the best toaster ovens — makes inferior, dried-out toast. This creates the crispy outside you want but leaves a warm, soft and chewy inside. The ability to simply push a button or lever and then move on to other tasks makes a slot toaster much more convenient — particularly for those mornings when minutes seem to fly by as you try to get out the door.

Clearly, the toaster is an ideal tool for making toast, frozen breakfast treats and bagels. That is, it was, until someone invented a clever hack. Toaster bags , made of heat-resistant and food-safe silicone or Teflon, allow you to cook pretty much anything that will fit in the slots. The bags, which trap any crumbs, melting cheese, or loose topping are washable and reusable. With the confined shape of toaster bags, you can also add your favorite toppings or spreads before toasting.

Grilled cheese or even peanut butter sandwiches come out hot and ready without any extra dishes. During our testing, we even made toaster panini with chicken, pesto and goat cheese.

You can also make hot sandwiches in a waffle maker, but as we found out in our review of the best waffle makers , even a non-stick waffle iron takes much more work to clean up than a toaster bag. A single person or couple will most likely be served well with a two-slot toaster while a larger family would probably benefit from the extra slots, particularly when multiple people need to use it in a short time period. The size of your kitchen and your aesthetic taste will also dictate how much of your counter space you want to dedicate to a toaster.

For a square-foot studio with a small kitchen, a two-slot toaster is probably going to be the right decision. The crumb tray — a small, thin, metallic sheet that slides out from the bottom of the toaster — is a crucial feature.

The tray catches all of the inevitable crumbs and debris that flake off bread during the toasting process. All of our finalists have crumb trays and we strongly advise against buying a toaster without one. The length and width of the slots will determine what can actually fit inside and smaller slots limit your ability to toast larger and more varied food items.

The lengths hover between 5 and 6 inches, with the exception of the Breville — BTAXL , which sports two unique inch long slots. Beyond simple toasting, there are several other pre-programmed features with which some toasters are equipped that change exactly how the toaster heats a given food item.

For example, the most common feature is the bagel setting, which makes a darker, crispier inside and prevents over-cooking the crust of a bagel by changing the intensity of the different heated coils. While all of our finalists have a bagel function, they are not all created equal. Another popular setting is the frozen or defrost button, which is designed for food coming directly from the freezer.

Again, all of our finalists have this feature, but it performs differently from model to model. Some frozen settings simply increase the time of a given cycle while others actually lower the intensity of the heat or more gradually increase it to prevent burning the outside before the inside is done. Other popular features to consider are levers, push buttons, LED displays, sound alerts, countdown timers, a cancel function and the ability to lift the food high enough out of the slots to make removing it by hand easy and safe.

Cheaper options may take a bit longer and produce less even coloring and texture than pricier models, which often have more wattage and more heated wires. In the end, your budget and personal preferences will help determine which one of our top picks will be your favorite. Slot toasters are incredibly efficient and provide the perfect texture and toast shade quicker, easier, and more reliably than other methods.

With the use of reusable toaster bags, a good toaster becomes a versatile and almost essential appliance for any kitchen. The four slots are wide enough to handle almost any food; the pre-programmed settings for bagels and frozen food work exceptionally well, and it looks and feels sharp and modern.

For a bit more versatility, our upgrade pick, the Breville — BTAXL , offers unique inch-long slots that are perfect for artisanal breads or reheating pizza. The KRUPS toaster performed best across the board in our updated testing and produced the most consistently and evenly toasted toast and bagels than our other new finalists for Daniel is a Canadian farm boy who grew up to be a nerd with a literature degree and too many hobbies to count. Daniel remains unapologetic about Canadian spelling, serial commas, and the destruction of expensive travel mugs.

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The Best Steam Mops. Skip to content Affiliate Disclosure. Daniel Jackson Updated April 8, Our Top Choices. See Price at Home Depot. See Price at Amazon. Also Great 2-Slice: Hamilton Beach - This This reasonably priced 2-slicer consistently toasts bread evenly on both sides. Best 4-Slice: Cuisinart - CBT The Cuisinart toaster is our top pick for a 4-slice toaster, thanks to its fast and consistent toasting and simple controls.

Best Value: Cuisinart - CPT If you're looking for nearly perfect toast out of an affordable toaster, this model is our pick. Daniel Jackson , Writer. More Reviews. Blue Apron Review Blue Apron. Hamilton Beach - Bella Pro Series CR's take: Gluten-free bread, which is denser than regular bread, doesn't toast quite the same. Bella picked up on this and added a gluten-free setting to the two-slice Bella Pro Series As for regular bread, the Bella earns an Excellent rating in our time tests, putting it among the fastest two-slice models in our ratings.

Overall, it combines top performance and a reasonable price, making it a CR Best Buy. This toaster has wide slots and settings for cut bagels and frozen bread; it defrosts the bread, then toasts. And if your toast turns out too light? Press the button labeled "A Bit More" and it will toast a little longer. This toaster is sleek, attractive, and spendy.

It utilizes a push-button control and lever to operate. The waffles, we hoped, would come out crispy and brown but not scorched or soggy. We toasted English muffins to see which toasters made it easiest to retrieve them without having to stick our fingers in the heated slots. And we took a look at the size of each model relative to others in its class. These inexpensive toasters browned bread, bagels, and waffles better than all of the competition in their price range. Unlike some other cheap toasters, the Cuisinarts have slots that are wide enough to fit thick, hand-cut bagels without requiring you to push them down yourself.

The plastic controls offer a wide range of toasting settings and feel sturdier than the plastic dials and knobs on some other toasters we tested. The two-slot Cuisinart is also one of the tiniest toasters we tested, making it ideal for kitchens with limited counter space.

They beautifully browned the entire slice of Wonder bread, whereas other toasters, like the Osters or Hamilton Beaches we tested, left unappetizing raw halos on top. When we filled every slot, the four-slot model made slightly lighter toast than the two-slot, but you can easily fix this by turning up the toasting dial.

By comparison, all other similarly priced toasters—and even some pricier machines—left bread even whiter and patchier.

The medium setting on both Cuisinarts also popped out a fully done piece of toast after 1 minute 20 seconds—almost half the time it took our previous top pick, the Oster Jelly Bean at 2 minutes 20 seconds. And the defrost setting on both Cuisinarts produced Eggo waffles that were crispy on the outside but soft and moist on the inside. The slots on the Cuisinarts were wider and deeper than those on most other toasters we tested. The controls on both Cuisinarts are simple. They also have buttons to reheat and defrost your toast, as well as a bagel setting.

All the parts you touch and twist stay cool, and they also feel sturdier than the moving parts of other toasters. We used Wonder bread—which is practically engineered to toast evenly—for our back-to-back tests, following the same procedure used by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. However, some of our long term testers were frustrated by uneven results. Upon retesting, we found the Cuisinart still performed as well as it did during our earlier tests, but it was important to adjust settings for different items this is true of any toaster.

For instance, English muffins had the most decent color on settings 5. Finding the optimal settings for each carb will vary depending on your preferences, so it will take some trial and error to find out what you like best. Thermal data showed that the Cuisinarts heated up faster and reached higher temperatures, whereas the Breville took longer to toast but had better temperature stability overall. Based on our research, we believe the heating elements in both appliances are probably made well enough to last at least five years.

The Cuisinarts have a simple, boxy design, so the two-slot version takes up less space than some of the flashier toasters we tested, like our previous runner-up, the space-inefficient Cuisinart CPT ViewPro Glass 2-Slice Toaster which is now discontinued. If you have a small kitchen and your counter space is at a premium, the Cuisinart two-slice is the way to go. The four-slice Cuisinart is just 4 inches wider than the two-slice model.

Cleaning and maintaining both Cuisinarts is as simple as sliding out the removable crumb tray and wiping it clean similar to other models we tested. The Cuisinarts come with a limited three-year warranty; only the expensive Magimix matches it for having the longest warranty of any toaster we tested.

Our two-slot upgrade pick from Breville comes with a one-year warranty. All of the printing is still intact, and none of the labels show any signs of wearing off.

The two Cuisinart toasters have virtually no flaws in toasting, aside from occasionally leaving slim pale lines around the edges. The labels printed next to the buttons may wear away, but, again, most toasters we looked at had a similar issue. And these labels should last longer than the ones printed directly on the buttons of other toasters like the Oster Jelly Bean or the Hamilton Beach Keep Warm , where buttery fingers may constantly be pressing.

Unlike the one on the Breville, the bagel setting on the Cuisinarts only adds time to the toasting cycle, without lowering the heat on the outside of the bagel. When the second batch starts, turn the heat down half a level from your normal setting. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case for just about any toaster. The Bit More also offers more flexible toasting options than our top-pick Cuisinarts. It allows you to check the degree of doneness mid-toast and offers the option to add 30 seconds more to the toasting cycle.

The Breville toasts more evenly than our top-pick Cuisinarts, with uniform browning from top to bottom. This may be because the Breville heats up slower and has better temperature stability for more of the toasting cycle than the Cuisinarts something Ohio State determined in its testing.

As with any toaster, to keep the heating elements intact, you should avoid shaking or banging the machine say, to remove crumbs. But again, electrical failures are probably more likely to occur before the heating elements fail in either model.

The Breville also has a helpful printed icon on the top of the toaster to show you which direction to insert a sliced bagel. The Breville also stays cool to the touch even after multiple rounds of toasting, unlike the steel toasters from Oster or Hamilton Beach.

The Breville also beeps to alert you when your toast is ready. You can adjust the volume or mute this feature by following the directions in the user manual. According to Ohio State, the Breville has a more-robust construction with more fasteners than the Cuisinart. We also love that this 2-slice toaster has one long slot instead of two short ones — not only can it fit two slices of bread side by side, it can also fit a single long slice. The removable crumb tray makes it easy to clean.

It is available in four colors. Some reviewers note that the range of toast settings between 2 and 6 there are seven total is hard to differentiate but that it does a good job of toasting evenly. If good looks take all in your kitchen, the Smeg 2-Slice Toaster is worth the price.

With its bright, glossy finish that comes in nine colors! When you select a setting, it locks into place so you know you've set it precisely. Also available in 4-slice size. This smart toaster has a touch screen tablet as a control panel.

When the screen is idle, it features the current date and time. Plus, the screen brightness is adjustable. The manufacturer claims the toaster will heat quickly, resulting in better-tasting toast because it can toast the exterior without drying out the inside.

Reviewers agree, but some claim that it toasts slightly unevenly. If there's more than two of you racing to make breakfast at the same time, a 4-slice toaster is probably your best bet. If counter space is a concern, however, you may want to opt for a 2-slice toaster. Opt for long slots if you love sourdough or other artisanal breads. You'll rarely be able to fit a whole slice in a traditional toaster without cutting it in half.

Another model to keep an eye out for is toasters with wide slots: These make toasting bagels and thicker slices of bread easier and fuss-free. There's also the aesthetic to consider. In our tests, we found that toast quality wasn't compromised either way. For example, the bagel setting usually toasts only the inside of a bagel and warms the outside so you don't have to worry about an overly dry or crunchy bite.

A defrost setting is great for frozen waffles or bread; it typically adds more time to the toasting process so you get the same results as you would if the waffles or bread were fresh. Reheat typically toasts bread or other ingredients for a short amount of time, perfect for a toaster pastry or adding a touch more color.