The 4 best air fryer toaster ovens, tested and reviewed

When you want an appliance that combines a toaster oven's versatility and enormous capacity with an air fryer's crisping skills and quick cooking, the best air fryer toaster ovens are the way to go. These two-in-one models let you cook large items — like whole chickens — that couldn't fit in a standard, basket-style air fryer. Plus, since you're getting two appliances in one, they'll save you precious counter space, too.

After testing over two dozen air fryer toaster ovens and talking to experts, I selected the Ninja Foodi XL Air Fryer Oven as our best overall pick. It's a spacious model boasting even cooking and intuitive controls. If you're on a budget, I recommend the Cosori Air Fryer Toaster Oven. It's a smaller option that heats quickly and precisely.

If you're looking for dedicated toaster ovens or air fryers, check out our guides for the best air fryer and best toaster oven. We also reviewed air fryer microwaves, but we prefer the models in this guide.

Our top picks for air fryer toaster ovens

Best overall: Ninja Foodi XL Pro Air Fry Oven - See at Amazon

Best value: Cosori Air Fryer Toaster Oven - See at Amazon

Best compact: Ninja SP101 Digital Air Fry Countertop Oven - See at Amazon

Best splurge: Café Couture Oven with Air Fry - See at Amazon

Best overall

It's one of the best designed air fryers. The Ninja Foodi XL Pro Air Fry Oven is more than a pretty face. Not only does it look sleek on any kitchen counter, but it has intuitive controls built into the handle, which frees up space for the large front window. Combined with the interior light, you can easily watch your food cook.

It actually maintains the temperature. The Ninja performed the best in our temperature variance test, coming the closest to maintaining the 350-degree set point. During the two hours, it ranged from 349 to 352, at most only 2 degrees off our target. It also produced perfectly cooked chicken in an hour and 10 minutes, on the fast end of the fryers we tested. French fries were evenly cooked and tasty, though the cooking time for fries and pizza was average.

There's plenty of room, but it heats slowly. It has an extra wire rack and is spacious enough to cook two dishes or pizzas simultaneously. I also like that it features several useful presets, including dehydration. The Ninja does take a while to preheat: It took over 9 minutes to reach 400 degrees and nearly 8 minutes to reach 350.

We also recommend similar models. Another version of the Ninja Foodi XL Pro has a built-in probe thermometer for monitoring your food's internal temperature. I haven't tested it yet, but it might be worth considering if you don't have ameat thermometer, especially since it's occasionally cheaper than the non-thermometer version.

Check out our full Ninja XL Pro Air Fry Oven review.

Best value

It's not the cheapest on the market, but it performed best out of all budget options. At about $130, the Cosori barely qualifies as a "cheap" air fryer toaster oven, but it was the least expensive machine that passed muster. Its performance rivaled my top pick. However, it lost points because its small interior only fits 9-inch pizzas, smaller than most frozen ones, and it had a higher-than-average temperature variance.

It comes with plenty of accessories. The boxy design doesn't take up much space on your counter, though it isn't small enough to be considered "compact." It also comes with some helpful extras like a rotisserie basket that helped it produce the best fries in our tests. Unfortunately, the basket's opening was too small to fit a chicken, so I cooked one in the baking pan. The skin was burned on top when the chicken reached a safe internal temperature, but the meat underneath was flavorful and moist. The pizza came out quickly and was more evenly cooked.

It heats up quickly. The oven took under 5 minutes to reach 350 degrees and 7 minutes to achieve 425. The temperature variance was higher than most models I tested, but still within reason. It averaged 7 degrees less than the set point and didn't vary by more than 6 degrees higher or lower.

Best compact

It's designed to fit in tight spaces. We named this model the best compact air fryer toaster oven because of its low-profile design, which allows it to fit small spaces. You can even store it vertically to save counter space. Despite its small size, it can accommodate the largest pizza (13 inches) of any of our picks. The bottom opens up to make the interior easier to clean.

It preheats quickly, but it runs hot. It did the best in my preheating tests, reaching 425 degrees in just over 4 minutes. In the temperature variance test, it maintained a consistent temperature, within a degree or two of 389. Unfortunately, this was much hotter than the 350 I set it to.

It's too small for some foods. One shortcoming is that it's too narrow to fit a whole chicken, so I couldn't perform that test. However, it was the fastest to cook pizza (7 minutes), which came out evenly browned and crispy. It did less well with frozen fries but was still in the middle of the pack for speed and quality. It's a good option if you want a multifunctional small appliance without giving up a lot of countertop real estate. It even made the list of the best small air fryers I tested.

Best splurge

This is a pretty, intuitive option The Café Couture Oven is one of Oprah's Favorite Things, and also one of ours. It is incredibly user-friendly, similar to the brand's Café Affetto, which we rank as one of the best espresso machines. The on-unit controls are intuitive: Simply turn the dial to the cook mode you want, turn the time and temp dial to your desired setting, and press start. The oven connects to your phone via the Smart HQ app. For safety reasons, you can't start preheating the oven from the app, but you can choose your settings and then press the on-unit start button to begin cooking.

It cooks quickly. Even preheat times were faster than the average air fryer toaster oven combo. It made fast-food-caliber fries in 12 minutes. A whole roast chicken took a smidge over an hour, and frozen pizza was ready in eight minutes. Of these, the fries came out the best. The chicken was slightly drier and less evenly cooked than I would have liked. The pizza's toppings cooked faster than the crust. Yet, I've found these issues can be easily remedied using the bake function rather than air fry.

One drawback — it runs hot. On average, it was 13 degrees hotter than the 350-degree set point, but didn't vary more than three degrees from that point. Lastly, clean-up was a breeze. All the accessories are dishwasher-safe except for the crumb tray, which is easy to remove and wash by hand.

What else we tested

For this guide, we tested 25 air fryer toaster ovens. Here are some we still recommend that just didn't make the cut.

Breville Joule Air Fryer Pro Smart Oven: This toaster oven did an outstanding job of cooking evenly and maintaining consistent temperatures. However, it took longer than most toaster ovens to preheat and cook. Plus, it's expensive.

Ninja Smart Double Oven: This air fryer features a regular-sized main oven and a low-profile top oven, so you can cook two dishes simultaneously. The food cooked quickly and evenly, though it was slow to preheat.

Dash Chef Series 7-in-1: This oven was one of the fastest to roast a chicken and one of the most even toasters, but it had the largest temperature variance during our tests.

Emeril Lagasse Power AirFryer 360: This air fryer preheated quickly and did a good job with chicken, pizza, and cookies, but it took a long time to toast and was uneven. The rotisserie spit is a fun touch.

What to look for in an air fryer toaster oven

Size and capacity: Since many toaster ovens are a pain to move around, choose one that easily fits on your counter. We provide our picks' exterior and interior dimensions (capacity) so you can check for a perfect fit. The capacity determines what bakeware and pizza sizes you can fit.

Functions: Several picks in this guide feature dehydration and proofing functions. These are great if you'll use them, but they may not be worth the additional cost if you won't. Similarly, toaster ovens often have preset buttons for fries, pizza, and other common items. These are useful starting points; just know that they don't guarantee that your food will be cooked well.

Cost: Air fryer toaster ovens are more expensive than the classic basket air fryers. If you don't need the extra capacity and versatility of a toaster oven, consider one of the best air fryers. That said, I've found the price of toaster ovens doesn't always correlate with performance. For instance, I've tested several expensive Breville air fryer toaster ovens that didn't cook nearly as well as our guide's Ninja picks that cost half as much.

Racks and accessories: All toaster ovens should have a rack, crumb tray, and baking pan. We prefer ones that come with an air fryer basket, which promotes airflow around your food items for even browning. Some common accessories that may come in handy are pizza pans and stones, roasting racks, extra wire racks and baking pans, and more.

How we test air fryer toaster ovens

The main factors we considered when testing the best air fryer toaster ovens are how well they cook various foods, how quickly they preheat, and temperature consistency and accuracy. Below are highlights from our tests.

Ease of use: Units with interior lights got extra points because they make it easier to monitor your food. Generally, the toaster ovens with WiFi connectivity took longer to set up and were harder to use.

Temperature variance: I set each unit to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and took readings every 15 minutes for 2 hours. Units received high scores if they stayed within 15 degrees of the target temperature.

Preheating: The best air fryer toaster ovens preheat faster than your standard oven. In separate tests, I timed how long each model took to preheat to 350, 400, and 425 degrees. Most reached 350 in under 8 minutes and only needed a minute more to reach 425.

Cooking performance:I cooked one pound of frozen fries and evaluated how evenly cooked, crispy, and fry-like they tasted. Then, I made a frozen pizza in each oven to see how long it took to cook at 425 degrees and how evenly it cooked.Finally, I used a recipe from "Toaster Oven Takeover" to cook 4-to 5-pound chickens in each unit. I evaluated how long the chicken took, how evenly cooked it was, and how it tasted.

Cleaning:I clean all units inside and out, noting how easy it is to reach and remove debris. Most toaster ovens have a crumb tray, making cleaning much easier. Appliances with dishwasher-safe components (racks, baskets, etc.) earned bonus points.

Air fryer toaster oven FAQs

Are air fryer toaster oven combos worth it?

A combination air fryer and toaster oven offers greater flexibility and faster cooking. For example, baking frozen fries in a traditional toaster oven would take longer and wouldn't come out as crispy as with an air fryer toaster oven, which utilizes the browning Maillard reaction. Plus, since most of today's toaster ovens come with air frying, the price is similar to those that don't.

Samantha Erb, the creator of Everyday Family Cooking, said the best air fryer toaster ovens are worth it when you cook for a group because their spacious interiors allow you to cook large batches of food or several items at once.

What's the difference between a traditional air fryer and an air fryer toaster oven?

An air fryer is simply an enclosed convection oven. Many toaster ovens already had "convection" settings, but when the technology became popular, they renamed this feature "air fry." If you're deciding between an air fryer toaster oven and a traditional air fryer, this table breaks down the major differences:

How do air fryer toaster ovens work?

Air fryer toaster ovens work just like regular air fryers — they're miniature convection ovens. A fan circulates hot air produced by a heating element. Since it's a smaller space, food browns and crisps more easily than when cooked in a traditional oven. Despite the name, there's no actual frying involved.

Are air fryer toaster ovens healthier?

It depends on what you mean by "healthy." Air fryers produce crispy food while using less oil than a traditional deep fryer.

How do I clean an air fryer toaster oven?

You'll need to clean the crumb tray, basket, wire rack, and roasting pan after each use. Some are dishwasher-safe, but take up quite a lot of room in the dishwasher. Don't forget to wipe the interior with a damp sponge to avoid oil land grease buildup.

Consider picking up one of our guide's best silicone air fryer liners to make cleanup easier.

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