What we’d leave: There’s not much to complain about here. There was some slight unevenness in browning between the two sides of the slices of bread, but this was a commonality among most toasters we tested.
A high-performing toaster for the aesthetically minded: Beautiful by Drew Barrymore 2-Slice Toaster
Pros:
- Intuitive touchscreen interface
- 7 different browning levels with good variation
- Comes in 11 colors
Cons:
- Touchscreen buttons beep when pressed
- Beeps loudly when toast is done
Size: 11.06″ x 8.11″ x 6.57″
Weight: 2.97 lb.
Warranty: Limited 2-year
Settings: Browning levels 1–7, Bagel, Frozen, Gluten-Free, Cancel
What we love: Whoever’s designing the appliances over at Drew Barrymore’s Beautiful line seems to know what they’re doing. We were pleasantly surprised by this $40 toaster in our most recent round of testing for its even browning, great variation in browning level between each of its seven settings, and touchscreen interface that feels luxe for the price.
The Beautiful’s primarily stainless-steel construction feels sturdy and well-made, and it comes in 11 colors at the time of writing, making it a great choice for anyone looking to add a pop of pastel to their kitchen. The touchscreen interface (which is typically the kind of thing we’d only expect to see in a high-end toaster) lights up when you need it and turns off when you don’t. And, because the buttons are digital, the whole thing is easy to wipe down—no chance of pesky crumbs sneaking into crevices here.
In testing, the Beautiful toaster did an impressive job of toasting white bread to a distinctly different shade at each of its seven browning levels. It also handled bagels, sourdough, and frozen waffles with ease.
What we’d leave: While this toaster comes in more neutral colors like white and black, the look of the gold lever might not be for everyone. It also beeps quite audibly when you turn it on or press the buttons and when your toast is done. This is helpful for knowing that your bread is toasted when you’re across the kitchen scrambling some eggs, but it could be disruptive if you live with others in tight quarters.
How we tested toasters
To kick off our testing we toasted white sandwich bread. We toasted slices at every browning setting to get a sense for the range of browning each toaster could deliver. We were looking for a nice gradient with distinct differences between each heat level and the ability to achieve deeply browned toast at the highest setting. We also noted any unevenness between the two sides of the slices of bread.
Then we moved on to bagels. We were looking for toasters with wide enough slots to accommodate a halved NYC bagel, and that did a good job toasting the cut sides without burning the outside or drying the whole thing out. If the toaster had a bagel setting, we used it here.
We then toasted thick slices of hefty sourdough bread to see how each toaster handled crustier carbs. We noted how long it took to achieve a desirable level of browning.
Finally, we assessed the defrosting feature on each toaster (if it had one) by toasting frozen waffles. We wanted waffles that were golden brown and crisp on the outside while remaining fluffy on the inside. If a toaster had no frozen setting, we still tested to see if it could adequately handle frozen carbs.
What makes a good toaster
Toasters should feel sturdy. While things like aesthetics, materials, and size can differ based on price point and brand, we didn’t want anything that felt flimsy or wobbled. This includes the body of the toaster as well as the lift lever and any buttons or knobs. Smaller profile toasters that are smartly designed to nestle in the corner of a kitchen are also signs of thoughtful construction.
A good toaster should accommodate more than just standard sandwich bread. While the average toaster can fit a slice of bread and bagel, the best toasters can accommodate a variety of sizes and shapes—completely lowering each piece and toasting it entirely.
A good toaster should offer a consistent and clearly defined range of browning levels. It should produce a noticeable difference in donenes that corresponds with each heat setting. There should be a distinct difference between each setting and the ability to produce both barely toasted nearly burnt toast.
Defrost without over toasting
Not all toasters defrost equally, even if they have the function in the first place. While a lot of toasters have a defrost or reheat function to thaw waffles and other frozen pastries, they don’t all work, oftentimes spitting out waffles that are burnt to a crisp, cold in the middle, or just straight up soggy. The best toasters can thaw and toast in one cycle, producing results that are warm, crisp, and cooked through.
The function of a toaster is pretty simple—it just needs to toast a variety of different carbs, and toast them well. The best models keep things streamlined, avoiding unnecessary features in favor of clear functional controls. An intuitive interface with straightforward knobs and buttons makes it easy to get the perfect toast every time.
Other toasters we liked
Smeg 2-Slice Toaster
Not only does the Smeg look nice, it’s also a dream to use—glossy cherry red exterior, chrome lever, and intuitive control knob that satisfyingly clicks into place as you select your toasting preferences. While it toasts evenly on all temperature settings, we did notice it runs a little hot and slices could come out darker than expected or even burnt. But we did like the generously sized slots, which could fit hunks of sourdough, and the slide out crumb tray that makes clean up a breeze. Overall it’s a great toaster, but an expensive one. We found other models to be better values. Still, we’d recommend this in a heartbeat to anyone who prioritizes style in their kitchen appliances.
Breville Die-Cast Toaster
Breville Die-Cast Toaster
The two-slice version of our favorite four-slice toaster, the Breville Die-Cast, looks sleek, works like a dream, and has the hefty price tag to go with it. Unlike some models, the Die-Cast has no lever, only buttons. You adjust your setting, press a button, and watch your slice get magically lowered away and pushed back up for your enjoyment when it’s done. The design is also friendly for small spaces—all the controls are on the short side of the toaster instead of the wide side. This makes it easier to nestle in a small spot in your kitchen. Still, the Die-Cast’s a good $60 more than the “A Bit More,” which might push it out of your price range.
Cuisinart CPT-520 2-Slice Motorized Toaster
Cuisinart CPT-520 2-Slice Motorized Toaster
Consider the Cuisinart CPT-520 a more affordable, less luxe version of the Die-Cast—they both feature the futuristic motorized lift feature, position all their buttons to the short side of the machine, and include a button to add a bit of extra time. That said, the lower price tag of the Cuisinart is apparent in its build quality. It also doesn’t always toast evenly on every function, especially when it comes to denser items like bagels.
Oster Jelly Bean 2-Slice Toaster
Don’t let the silhouette and your assumptions about the flimsiness of the plastic body fool you—the Oster Jelly Bean is actually a quality toaster. While the curvy, charcoal silhouette of the Oster sets it apart from some of its sleek stainless-steel contemporaries, the matte look actually makes it resistant to fingerprints or smudges. It also performed pretty well. It evenly toasted everything we put it up against, even on the higher settings—though the curved design does mean the bread doesn’t get fully submerged for toasting, leaving the tops of your bread bare.
Haden Dorset 2-Slice Toaster
Haden Dorset 2-Slice Toaster
We were charmed by the retro design of this toaster from Haden. Its simple interface is intuitive to use but has everything you need to get the job done: a dial for switching between the six browning levels, defrost and bagel settings, and cancel button. We didn’t feel it was able to achieve quite as evenly-browned results as our top pick, and thought the different shade settings lacked a bit of variety from each other (especially the middle ones). This toaster also struggled with thicker bread options—its slots were barely wide enough to fit a halved bagel, and the bagel got stuck instead of popping out after toasting. That said, if you’re drawn to this Haden aesthetically, it’s not a bad option.
Toasters we don’t recommend
For one reason or another, these toasters didn’t earn our seal of approval.
The KitchenAid toasts bread pretty evenly, but it doesn’t include a defrost option. We would’ve overlooked this—especially considering it seemed to make frozen waffles just fine using the regular toaster function—except that the one other setting it had for bagels didn’t work well at all.
The four-slice version of our favorite two-slice toaster, the Breville Long Slot toaster is designed to fit slices from much wider loaves of bread. Nice idea, right? Well, the longer length meant there was a gap in the heating elements that left a pale strip in the middle of out bread.
The Cool Touch Toaster offers a lot of curb appeal. It’s a sleek black with nondescript buttons (they’re labeled with icons instead of words), but the high-quality look didn’t translate to high performance. Even on the highest setting, the Zwilling produced, at best, a mid-level of browning.
This toaster from Alessi garnered quite a few compliments from our officemates who spotted it perched on a desk before testing, which makes sense: It’s quite the looker. Unfortunately, it produced nearly identical pieces of toast at settings 3–6 and failed to produce anything browner than what we’d expect from a middle heat setting. It failed spectacularly at toasting bagels, unable to brown them in the slightest even at the highest setting.
This futuristic-looking toaster from All-Clad has a touchscreen display and shiny stainless-steel finish that are the definition of sleek, and we found it very fun to operate. However, we were ultimately let down by its performance. Despite its seven settings, it wasn’t able to produce the full toast gradient we were looking for, and it could only get bagels to a light-to-medium brown even on its highest setting.
We liked how the CPT-142 captured a range of browning with the different toasting levels—which is more than other models can say—but it performed weakly when defrosting waffles.
While this KitchenAid model certainly looks nice with its bulbous retro shape and vintage-inspired control panel, it weighed a ton. We disqualified it before testing because we could hardly lift it onto the counter.
In addition to the nice motorized lift and lower function we liked in the Breville, the Tineco adds some other techy features. Instead of buttons and a lever, you select all of your toasting preferences using a small touchscreen that juts out from the front of the machine. It toasted evenly, especially on the darker settings. It did a particularly good job toasting all the way to the edges of the bread. However, despite all its technology, the Tineco didn’t do well with frozen waffles. Even using the defrost mode on the highest setting only still yielded pale and soggy results. If you don’t have kids and aren’t plating up Eggos on the regular it might be ok, but they’re a common enough demand for toasters that we don’t feel the Tineco is versatile enough.
Everything about the Cuisinart felt flimsy—it wobbled on the counter, the lever squeaked, and we sometimes got worried the loose control knobs would pull right off. The toasting power was also one of the weakest of all the models.
Just unboxing this toaster and moving it to the counter caused plenty of loud rattles, so if you want a sturdy stainless-steel toaster, the plastic Hamilton Beach will probably disappoint. The heating elements also seemed weak. Other models offered more power and range in browning.
The Hamilton Beach Cool Wall felt flimsy. While light weight isn’t always an indicator of poor performance, we felt like each piece on this model was one toast away from falling apart.
The Black+Decker only worked on the highest heat settings, leaving pale, lightly golden waffles, bagels, and bread slices on any mid-range settings. While it did toast more evenly on those higher settings, we couldn’t get past the lack of range.
The highest heat setting on the Krups toasters yielded the type of browning you’d expect from one of the mid-heat settings—this was especially noticeable on the bagels. The defrost setting by comparison felt disproportionately powerful, burning waffles to a crisp on the highest setting.
We liked the idea of the Dash toaster, with its clear window that allows you to peek inside your toaster. That window seemed to fix one of the shortcomings of almost all pop-up toasters in that it lets you monitor the progress of your bread to make sure it never burns. Unfortunately that window revealed a toaster that produced incredibly inconsistent results.
Bella claims this toaster will fit anywhere, and it very well may be right. It’s incredibly thin, which would be ideal for kitchens that are tight on counter space. But while we liked its inoffensive modern design and simple interface, it toasted bread unevenly and there was not enough variation between browning levels, nor enough browning even on the highest setting. Its slim design also meant its slots were a touch too narrow to comfortably fit hefty bagels.
Each Dualit toaster is hand-assembled in England and fully repairable—which is why we were very disappointed when it practically disqualified itself by our second test. In the white bread test, we noticed very uneven browning on each slice. Then, when it came time for the bagel test, we couldn’t even fit the bagels in the slots. We also disliked the fact that you have to use a lever to manually lower and raise bread out of the toaster and that there’s no sound when your toast is done.
This 4-slice model from Haden failed to impress us for a few reasons. For one, its middle settings turned out quite pale, and it was unable to achieve a suitable level of browning on a bagel even at the highest setting. But the main thing we disliked about this toaster was the interface: It’s got a mix of buttons plus a small digital screen that displays the browning level, but that screen is impossible to read unless you’re looking at it straight on (so if your toaster is at counter height, you have to stoop down).
This toaster performed okay in our testing, but we wished there was more variation in browning levels between some of the settings. Our biggest gripe was that it took longer to toast anything than most other models we’ve tested. For the price ($120 when we received it), we just don’t think it’s worth it.
What does the “bagel” function actually do?
Almost every toaster you can buy comes with a little button labeled “bagel,” but lots of people don’t know what happens if you push it. Because bagels are thicker than bread, they need to get toasted slightly differently than regular toast. Enter the bagel setting. This button will increase the temperature on the heating elements in the middle of the toaster—the ones working on the cut side of the bagel—while maintaining the constant temperature on the outside elements. This then gives you the perfectly toasted bagel with a firm but not burnt exterior and a nice crisp inside to spread your cream cheese across.
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