Best Toaster Ovens Under $100

The toaster has been one of the essential kitchen appliances for many years, making breakfast and mornings easier for everyone. Starting your day with a bite of freshly made toast over a cup of warm tea should be more than enough to call yourself content.

And what if you can get a toaster that can also function as an oven? It would certainly be great, right? Yes, toasters these days are featuring qualities of an oven too. And that’s what is called a Toaster Oven. It can shorten the space and time required for making foods in your kitchen.

Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven is one of those best toasters under $100 that offers you the option to quickly make toast, pizza, or warm-up foods in blistering seasons when you don’t want to heat up the entire kitchen with the regular size oven.

What makes the Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven special?

Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven is a compact size, durable and exceptional toaster oven. It is not only capable of toasting bread and bagels, but they can also cook whole chickens or pizza with great excellency. It offers extra controls like temperature and timer that make cooking more convenient and exciting.

But most importantly, it’s affordable. The quality of service it offers is literally unparalleled compared to the other Toaster Ovens out there within this budget.

For instance, Calphalon Countertop Toaster Oven costs more than $200 whereas you are getting the same sort of service and features within $100 on this masterpiece. Besides, getting a convection toaster oven from a renowned brand like Black & Decker, and at this price, is really striking.

So, let’s see what else it has to add some twists to your toasts.

1. Natural Convection System Does the Job Super-Fast

A natural convection toaster oven works with a fan that has a heating element around to evenly distribute the temperature. It is a kind of heat transportation system where the fluid motion is not generated by a peripheral source, rather the fluid that surrounds heat becomes less dense and rises.

Getting a little confused with all the technicalities? Well, skip that, and let’s focus on the benefit of Natural Convection rather than understanding its behaviour.

The main advantage of a Natural Convection toaster oven is that it makes cooking faster and easier. The machine is capable of producing extreme heat within few minutes, which is required for a quick toast. Besides, it’s also capable of cooking at a lower temperature.

In microwave ovens, we often see food on one side burn out, and the other side remains uncooked. That’s because of the uneven heat distribution inside the machine. But a convention-based toaster oven roasts or broils foods by the use of hot air, hence, the question of insistent cooking gets excluded.

2. Compact Design

It’s a matter of wonder how a machine with a size of merely one foot could perform such multipurpose acts. Its compactness is literally astonishing. It should easily fit anywhere in the kitchen or the side tables of your room. So, it is highly recommended for kitchens with limited counter spaces.

The Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven might be humble in size, but its oven cavity is still large enough to fit four slices of bread to be toasted. In addition to that, making a medium size 9 inches pizza is no big deal with this great toaster oven.

The interior of the toaster oven is designed using the principles of thermodynamics. Besides, accurate airflow is confirmed to efficiently provide consistent heating and faster results.

3. Prepare Snacks beside Making Toast

A toaster is good. But if the toaster can offer few other options like making pizza, baking cake, or preparing some of your favourite snacks, then it would be something like killing two birds with one stone. Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven is a handy pick for people looking for something extra within this budget.

It comes with a good broiling performance that’s almost identical to a regular size oven. With its larger interior and powerful convection technology, you should be able to make evening snacks for 3 to 4 persons without much effort. 

4. Durable Build Quality

Hold on, don’t be deceived by its appearance. Despite having stainless steel attire, it’s actually not a metal item. Rather, it’s made of heat-resistant plastic and polypropylene materials that ensure great endurance, no matter how much stress you put in the machine.

5. Extra-Wide Glass Door

The Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven comes with an extra-wide glass door, making it extremely helpful to monitor the changes in your food. It gets easier to put foods inside the toaster oven for a wider door. On top of that, it aids cooking more evenly since glasses are good reflectors of heat.

6. Extensive Controls

It comes with three different knob controllers that let you set different values for temperature, cooking mode, and timer. The designs of the controllers are rather sleek and easy to operate. The top residing controller lets you manually choose between a temperature of 200 ° to 450 ° Fahrenheit.

At the same time, it also suggests which temperature is ideal for a particular type of cooking. For example, as soon as the indicator passes the 450°F mark, the Broil sign written next to it will assist you for easy understanding. Manual temperature control gives you additional authority over the foods.

Just below the temperature controller, rests the cooking modes of the machine. It lets you choose four cooking options – warm, broil, bake, toast – making it extremely easy for people who aren’t sure about the exact temperature. Just set any of them and wait for the machine to complete its task.

The third and last knob controller is dedicated to a timer that lets you set an operation time from 10 to 30 minutes. Besides. ‘Stay In’ mood will keep the machine on for an indefinite amount of time according to your convenience and keep your food warm as long as you want.

However, this controller also lets you choose between the toast intensity. You can choose from three different toasting options to get the perfect crunchiness of your toast.

7. Removable Crumb Tray

While making toast or baking cake in the machine, some crumbs always find a way to stay inside. The main goal of this removable crumb tray is to hold the extra crumbs while they are falling off the bread after placing it into it or during the toast making process. This makes the cleaning system very easy.

8. Dishwasher Safe Rack and Pan

The toaster oven comes with a dishwasher-safe rack and pan. The rack is made of solid stainless steel that can sustain extreme heat and is 100% corrosion-free.  The wider baking pan is a perfect fit for toast, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, egg rolls, pizzas, and other favourite snacks as well.

9. Defrost and Reheat Your Foods Quickly

Toaster Oven is a handy way to quickly defrost frozen foods. The convection steam can easily defrost any frozen food that fits into the interior. You should set a low temperature to perform the defrosting, at the same time make sure that the bottom of the machine is dry all through the process.

Besides defrosting, it allows you to heat the meal quickly before dining. Since the convection steam reaches the corner of the chamber quicker than a microwave oven, it lets you warm up your foods faster and saves energy.

10. Taller Legs Keep the Surface Safe

Though it’s a light-duty machine, it can generate heat while you use it extensively. That time, it needs a good ventilation system, especially at the base of the machine. That’s why Black & Decker has equipped it with four taller legs that ensure the surface it’s sitting on is safe from its scorching body.

Besides, the legs offer a firm grip on the surface and keep it in place while you use the glass door during operation.

All these exciting features within this budget make it one of the best toaster ovens under 100$ without a doubt.

Shortcomings of the Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven

To be honest, if you consider the price it asks and the service it provides, it’s really more than enough anyone could expect from a compact toaster oven. Yet, there are few shortcomings that you should be aware of before getting this product into your kitchen.

1. Not an Ideal Option for Too Many Dishes

Toaster Oven is better to be considered as a secondary oven of your home that can do the short and periodical jobs in quick time. Doing too many dishes in quick succession can hinder the performance of the machine.

2. Can’t Perform at Overcrowd Situation

Basically, it’s a machine that can make four slices of toast, in addition to that, it can also do some quick short snacks. But if you take it as a full-size oven and stuff a bunch of dishes inside the toaster oven, it’s obvious for the machine to deny you.

Since Convection Ovens largely depend on fans, it’s very important for the users to make sure that there is enough vacant space left for the hot air to travel inside the machine. That being said, if you stuff the machine with items larger than recommended, it’s very likely to lose its performance.

3. It Could be Vulnerable

Although the likelihood of an explosion is extremely rare, the glass door used in the oven, at times, might get shattered if you put an excessive burden on the machine. On top of that, the body of the oven also gets hot enough to make trouble for a bare hand.

However, you can just eliminate these risks by doing one humble thing – just keep things simple by not stretching the machine beyond its capabilities.

4. An On/Off Switch Was Indeed Needed

Perhaps the most significant shortcoming of the Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven is that it doesn’t come with an ‘On or Off’ switch. That being said, you need to wait for the machine to stop by itself even after you bring out the food if it’s done before the timer.

However, it has an unorthodox solution, which is by unplugging the cord from the electric board. Yet, it’s better to address it as a real issue.

5. The Writings in the Dial are Not Veteran Friendly

The machine is compact – no one will deny it. But there were certainly enough spaces for Black & Decker to make the letters a little bigger to be read out.

It gets really difficult for veterans to read the dial letters for being extremely small. It’s absolutely of no use for anyone who can’t see without their glasses.

6. The Timer Makes Subtle Noise

If you reside in an extremely sound-sensitive environment, the subtle tickling noise of the timer might or might not bother you. But the truth is, it does create sound. So, it was our duty to let you know about it before you reach your decision.

Pros:

• Affordable
• Natural Convection
• Compact
• Extra Control
• Excellent Outlook
• Variety of Cooking Options
• Crumbs Remover Included

Cons:

• Outside Gets Extremely Hot
• Not Ideal for overwork
• No On/Off Switch

FAQ

1. Can I use aluminium foil inside this Toaster Oven?

Ans. Yes, you can. Since the convection toaster ovens cook using a unique heating fan, you can easily use lining paper or aluminium foil without worrying about the quality, consistency, or the time it takes to cook the foods.

2. Is Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven Energy-Efficient?

Ans. It wouldn’t be wrong to call an 1150W Toaster Oven an energy-efficient machine. At least if you compare it with other products of its kind. Usually, the countertop toaster oven varies around 900 to 1200 wattages.

3. Can I Bake Cake in the Toaster Oven?

Ans. Yes, the Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven comes with an option that lets you cook items other than toasters too. You can make small cakes by using the right pan. Since the heat is distributed evenly inside the toaster oven, it offers good quality cake baking performance.

4. Can I use pans other than the provided ones?

Ans. Yes, it allows you to use all the carbon steel pans as long as they fit inside the toaster oven. However, it’s always ideal not to use oversized pans since they can interrupt the free flow of fan air inside the machine.

Final Thoughts

Toaster Oven is of the simplest and most popular kitchen items. Other than making quality toast, it can also effectively heat up foods, bake cakes, bagels, waffles, pizza, as well as other easy snacks, making small cooking easier. And Black & Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven has taken it to another level.

But its powerful interface with ease of use is what makes it one of the best Toaster Oven Under $100. Other than that, it comes with functions that make cooking a lot quicker. Besides, the super-charged convection fan that circulates heats evenly all around the oven, gives distinctive browning to your food.