If you wish you had a second oven or don’t have one at all — then it’s also your best bet. The major design difference between the TOA-60 and TOA-65 is the interface. The TOA-60 model is a completely manual interface with four knobs that toggle temperature, time, presets and function.
On air fry mode, it browned and crisped French fries, plus both homemade and frozen chicken nuggets, to a light golden brown. Once a cooking mode is selected, the Ninja automatically goes into a short preheat mode and beeps when it’s time to place food in the oven. In April 2022, Best Buy recalled 770,000 Insignia air fryer models—including digital, analog, and air fryer toaster oven models—which cuisinart air fryer oven amounts to roughly 3% of all air fryers sold in the US over the past two years. We haven’t tested (nor do we recommend) any Insignia air fryers for this guide, so the recall doesn’t affect our picks. If it’s an appliance we use every day — like an electric kettle and pour-over glass coffee maker — we make room for it. If not, it gets stashed away until some holiday or spring-cleaning project.
However, DON’T line the basket itself, because you need the air to be free-flowing through the basket to ensure evenly cooked and crispy food. Yes, you can re-crisp them in the oven or cast-iron, but this does it in minutes, and makes takeout taste fresh out of the kitchen again. As Editor of Product Reviews at BobVila.com, Beth Cranston designs the testing guidelines and rubrics for the product reviews team.
We also cooked frozen pizza, refrigerated biscuits, and broiled chicken breasts to see if they baked on the inside and browned on the outside in a reasonable amount of time. In most, we also cooked homemade French fries and chicken nuggets, frozen nuggets, and Nashville hot chicken. The Cosori Smart Air Fryer Toaster Oven is another good option for anyone who prioritizes air frying and toasting over baking. It excelled at air frying everything we tested, and it toasted bread perfectly evenly. Unfortunately, we needed to extend the cooking time when baking pizza and biscuits by almost half the recommended time. The interior has a nonstick coating, and the air fryer basket and baking pan can be tossed in the dishwasher.
A microfiber cloth damp with a mild soap solution did the trick and the outside only needed a quick wipe-down and dry. The oven rack and crumb tray had to be handwashed (easy) while the baking/drip pan and air fryer basket cleaned up in the dishwasher (easier). The Cuisinart Convection Toaster Oven Air Fryer was truly disappointing. The bulky machine feels and looks like a tank, and for the price, it lacks finesse.
Both the Instant Pot Vortex Pro and the Instant Pot Omni Plus are on sale this Prime Day, and they’re both great options for oven-style air fryers. Both have features like a digital touchscreen, a rotisserie, and a dehydrator, so the choice really comes down to size and capacity. The Vortex Pro has a countertop footprint that’s small comparative to the Omni, so we recommend that you go for that model unless you favor the Omni’s larger 19-quart capacity. The Instant Pot Pro Crisp looks (and, for the most part, acts) like an Instant Pot, but has air fryer capabilities in addition to its typical pressure cooking capabilities.
Air frying definitely has a learning curve, especially with the Cusinart, I’m told, because it tends to run pretty hot. So at times, cleaning does require a bit of elbow grease and the air fry basket mesh cuisinart choppers can be fiddly to clean, I’d recommend a brush for this. On the plus side, here’s a handy removable crumb tray that pulls out of the front making it easy to remove crumbs from beneath the element.
I loved the Ninja’s one-minute preheat, its light for checking on your food during cooking, and its quiet operation. When this oven isn’t in use, you can flip it over and stand it up at the back of the countertop. The back also opens to give you easy access to the interior for cleaning.
As for performance, the medium setting for toast lasted a lengthy five minutes 15 seconds—and it resulted in burnt bread (you had one job, toaster oven!). The oven is beautifully designed with intuitive, easy-to-read electronic controls. The preprogrammed times and temperatures cover many functions and types of food. This Cuisinart doesn’t have digital controls like most of its competitors do, but the rotary dials are a no-brainer to operate. It’s narrower and taller than a standard toaster oven, but still fits under a standard cabinet.
Some models can roast on a rotisserie, slow cook, or dehydrate, making them even more useful. Toaster ovens can handle a whole range of tasks, from toasting four or more slices of bread to broiling, baking, and reheating. The Cosori Air Fryer Toaster Oven compromises a bit on air frying results to add toasting, baking, broiling and rotisserie. French fries or chicken nuggets don’t come out much crispier than baking them in an oven.