How To Toast Bread In A Toaster Oven

If you’re wondering how to toaster bread in a toaster oven, I’ll let you in on a little secret – it’s not like using a regular toaster at all. If you’ve never seen a toaster oven, then this might come as a surprise to you. If you have, it shouldn’t.

Really, toasting bread in a toaster oven is a lot more like cooking toast in a regular oven. You will need to preheat the toaster oven, place it onto the grill, allow the element to cook the toast (and possibly flip it), and then take it out yourself when it is done.

This means that if you have never made toast in a regular oven before, you’re about to learn a new skill. It’s not difficult to toaster bread in a toaster oven, but it is different from what you are used to. Because I’m a fully fledged toaster oven convert (and barely use my regular toaster or my regular oven anymore), I decided to give you a quick rundown on how to make the best toaster in your toaster oven.

Table of contents

• What Are The Most Common Toaster Oven Settings?
• How Do I Preheat A Toaster Oven?
• How Do I Make Toast In A Toaster Oven?
• Do I Need To Flip The Bread Over In A Toaster Oven?
• How Do I Toast Bread With Butter In A Toaster Oven?
• Conclusion

Although a lot of people are only just learning about how useful and effective toaster ovens are, they’ve been around since 1910. This means that there have been many different types of toaster ovens, each with either large or small differences. Finding one that is perfect for you is key to getting the perfect toaster oven experience.

But most toaster ovens are fairly similar to a general “modern design”. This means that they all have cooking cavities, they all have elements that cook whatever is in the cooking cavity, and they generally have a grill much like a general oven. Because they are versatile pieces of kitchenware, they also tend to have similar settings on them.

These general settings are bake, broil, and toast. Simple, right? Some toasters have these set out as a switch-like dial to change between the settings. Others have them on a separate dial to the temperature gauge. If you buy a slightly more upmarket toaster oven, you may find that it has a screen which you can interact with.

Because of these settings, toaster ovens have all the necessary tools for cooking a range of foods. With the bake setting, you can make excellent cookies and cakes. If you have a toaster oven that has more than one element, you will find that the bottom element is the hottest.

When using the broil settings, the top elements will be the hottest. This is perfect for roasting chickens, grilling any kind of meat, or cooking pizza (if you are lucky enough to own a toaster oven big enough for a full sized pizza!).

And finally, the toasting setting will heat with both sets of elements. This means that if you are toasting bread, you don’t have to flip it over. This is great for many reasons, but especially when you want to cook a piece of bread that has butter on one side.

Preheating a toaster oven isn’t difficult, but it does depend on the model that you have. You will probably find that it is very similar to a more conventional oven that you have used in the past, especially compared to a regular toaster.

Find the appropriate way of setting heat on your toaster oven. This might be a dial, a keypad, a switch, or a digital interface. Find out where the heat settings are and set it to the appropriate heat. Ideally, you don’t want to have to change this during the cook as you will get inconsistent heats and a generally poorer quality finish.

When you have the appropriate heat setting on the toaster oven, close the door. This is key. A lot of people ruin whatever they are cooking by frequently opening and closing the door. Keep it closed for as long as possible!

Then, leave it for between 10 and 15 minutes. In my research, I found that some toaster ovens can heat up in as little as 5 minutes, but this is generally only on the toast setting. Once that time has passed, you have a perfectly preheated toaster oven that is ready to cook whatever you want.

After you have preheated your toaster oven on the toast setting, toasting bread is really easy. If you’ve ever made toast in a regular oven, you will basically know all the necessary steps.

Take your pieces of bread and place them onto the grill rack. Slide the toast back into the toaster oven and get ready to watch it cook. This part, however, really depends on how powerful your toaster oven is.

If you have a low wattage toaster oven (this can generally be found on the plug or on a sticker attached to the toaster oven), you may need up to 9 minutes to cook the toaster thoroughly. If you have a strong toaster oven (such as around 1700W), you may only need 5 minutes to get your delicious, crunchy toast.

This process will take a little bit of experimenting before you can confidently say that it only takes a certain amount of minutes.

If you have a toaster oven with only one element, you will need to flip the bread. This kind of works like a convection oven – as all the heat comes from one direction, at best, you are getting a slightly crisp top on your toast.

When you get to the halfway mark (for example, 4 and a half minutes from an expected 9 minute cook), open the door, flip the bread, and put it back in. It’s really that easy.

Just because the element is below the bread, it doesn’t mean that the top won’t cook. Try to avoid overcooking the bottom before flipping it as the heat that is already in the cooking cavity will continue to cook the top after it is flipped.

If you followed either of the above “how-to’s”, you will know how to toast bread with butter. The main problem with applying butter is that it can make a bit of a mess of the toaster oven’s cooking cavity. Aside from that, it’s an easy process.

Some people like to put the butter onto the bread at the start of the cook. I find, however, that this leads to burnt butter on my toasty snacks. That’s no good. It’ll taste bitter and not be a particularly appealing piece of toast.

What I do is take the toast out of the toaster oven when there is between 75 and 85% of the cook done. For example, if I had a toaster oven that cooked toast in 9 minutes, I would take it out after 7 minutes. Then apply a lashing of butter to your toast and let the toaster oven do the rest. When you take it out, you should have a delicious, buttered slice of crunchy toast.

Making toast in a toaster oven isn’t as easy as doing it in a regular toaster. If you have a lower-end model, you might need to manually flip the bread over. Those kinds of toaster ovens are rather rare, however, so you should be able to avoid that problem.

All you need to get the best tasting toast is a little patience, a good understanding of your toaster oven and its settings, and an appropriate amount of time. If you have all of them, you can easily cook delicious snacks in no time.