Why can't I use toaster oven instead of real oven?

There are two differences that could be involved:

• A fair number of toaster ovens have really bad temperature control. It's common knowledge in the polymer clay community that there are relatively few models that can be relied upon to bake your clay without producing clouds of foul black smoke.

• The food is much nearer the element. When I cook fishsticks they end up frying slightly in a film a greese. Sometimes they pop a little. Could that be a fire hazard?

I use my toaster oven all the time to cook during the summer so, as not to heat up the whole kitchen. I have never had a problem. Actually, I think it is more heat balance than my gas oven.

re toaster oven cooking :

I called frozen food co and the answer was the fear of the plastic container melting.

She suggested removing food from plastic and placing in reg cooking dish and maybe lowering temp 25º but keeping same time. I've been doing that for a year now (but not lowering temp) and it's been really convenient.

The two issues I have had when baking in a toaster oven are precision and temperature curve. (disclaimer: I build and repair commercial ovens so if this gets complicated you can ignore it.) These problems are well documented by hobbyists using toaster ovens as reflow ovens. you can retrofit a more precise temperature controller if you want to over come the precision problem, but if the elements are undersized it takes longer to first get the oven to temperature and then when you introduce a large cold mass into a small warm mass you get a large temperature drop and then a longer time for your food to reach temp. you can overcome some of this by preheating, cooking smaller amounts, and cooking for longer times. A thermometer is often a great way to determine if it has finished cooking.

I have a Breville Smart oven and it's actually more accurate than than my reg. oven. There's only the 2 of us and unless we have company, I use the toaster oven. I do reduce the temp. by 25 degrees because of the smaller volume of space an closeness to the elements. I haven't had any problems at all.

The reason is simple. If it uses plastic or paper packaging for cooking, the radiant heat of an electric oven is too hot and will melt the plastic and possibly ignite the paper. In a normal oven, the majority of the heat is not radiant but convective, and the heat source is relatively far away. If you don't use plastic packaging, food cooks just as well in the toaster oven. When I cook fish sticks I simply use aluminum foil or a metal pan, and discard the included paper or plastic tray. There is no pre-heating, and I usually finish by toasting for an extra crispy crust.

Some people claim that temperature regulation is worse in a toaster oven. That simply isn't true. It's actually easier to control temperature precisely in the toaster oven because the space is so small so the temperature sensor can get a sense of the entire oven. In a large oven, especially a home gas oven, where would you place the sensor? If you place it too near the flames then it would measure the flames. And it certainly can't be placed in the center of the oven with the food is. Keep in mind that home gas ovens use mechanical thermostats that is hard to put remotely. Some better electric ovens use a wired probe that you can actually place into the food. Otherwise, there is no way to actually measure the temperature of the food. In the small space of a toaster oven, there is much less of a temperature difference between the food and wherever the sensor is located.

Furthermore, many better toaster ovens use electronic controls and multiple temperature sensors. The Breviile and Cuisinarts use multiple variable heating elements, multiple sensors and electronic controls. For example, some have 2 elements on top and 2 below, all of which are regulated individually and precisely. Try that with a gas oven! A convective fan can also help, evening out the heat.

As for the complaint of potters, the problem isn't temperature control, but rather the small space. When you place a 3D object in the small space, where some parts and edges are much nearer the elements than others, you'll get uneven baking and burning. It's why you don't want to bake a large turkey in a toaster oven. But most foods like the above fish sticks are flat and uniform, thus will heat evenly.

Someone also mentioned thermal mass above. That's a non-issue since one almost never opens a toaster oven during cooking. The small space and electric light makes food easy to see without opening the door. It's still a non-issue in those rare cases where you need to baste, add ingredients or position the food. That's because much of the heat in a toaster oven is radiant, not convective. It's why you don't really need to preheat toaster ovens. The small space and radiant heat mean that foods reach the desired temperatures quickly. There is no need to reheat the internal air every time you open the door, as would be the case in a conventional oven.

For those who forget their physics, radiant heat is how sunlight gets to us. The heat is nearly instantaneous since there is no need to heat up the air between the source and the target. If heating the air is required, heat from the sun would never reach us since there is no air in the vacuum of space. Toaster ovens use a combination of radiant heat and convective heat, where the air is heated. As such, minimal preheating is needed and the oven quickly returns to the target temperature if you open the door. That's why thermal mass is not a real issue.

Many dishes were ruined because my toaster oven temperature was off. I finally checked it out with a digital & an oven thermometer(s). Now I manually adjust the temperature & dishes turn out better. Invest in a reliable oven thermometer to avoid wasting money on ruined dishes.

See my picture for detailed examples.

Picture source.

I used the Oster XL digital toaster oven for several years as my only oven. I was delighted with it. I was able to bake small pizzas cakes, cookies, casseroles, and meat dishes. It was very even heating and reheated quickly after opening the door. I fully understood why it was rated the best toaster oven on the market for several years in a row and receives great ratings on line. I know from experience that many smaller and cheaply made toaster ovens don't heat evenly as my mother always used to keep a toaster oven in the house for heating up toast and bagels for breakfast. But I truly don't understand why so many people have disparaged them here. I think it's like anything in life...you get what you pay for. If you only spend $19 on a toaster oven you get a crummy tool that doesn't heat evenly and has hot spots inside the oven. If you buy one that is rated highly on line by the people who purchased and use it daily you're going to get a really useful tool that most likely will do what it is supposed to do.

I use a toaster oven all the time for my cooking with zero problem. I live alone, so using the full size oven just seems wasteful and impractical when I cook 1-2 servings at a time. The toaster oven heats up the apartment less and uses about 1/14 of the electricity(1000 Watts vs 14 kW). I have cooked 4 chicken drumsticks (about 5-10 minutes longer than the recipe recommends) in that thing with ease, and mine is just a cheap Walmart model.

The thing is basically a counter top oven and if you have an electric oven (like myself) it works on the exact same principals, just on a smaller scale. Just be careful that nothing touches the sides of the ovens, don't cook anything that will splatter (fire hazard) and clean it out regularly (again, fire hazard) and you should have zero problems.

We're talking fishsticks here. Slap 'em on some foil and chuck 'em in the toaster oven. You might have to play with time and temp?

It's legal CYOA. You obviously can cook them in a toaster oven, but it's fish- it must reach a safe temperature or you could get sick. The directions they have for an oven can't guarantee that safe temperature in an unknown toaster oven. If they didn't say "don't use these directions for a toaster oven," then someone could screw up, give themselves food poisoning and sue because the directions didn't specify.

I would suggest using the disposable aluminum foil pans when baking foods in the toaster ovens. I heat frozen meals and leftovers in the toaster oven regularly, and what I've noticed is that when you use the hard baking sheet things tend to burn easily. Now my toaster oven has a temperature control, but it won't allow me to use it on the bake setting, because the bake and temp setting is on the same controller. In other words, when I set the temperature, both the upper and lower heat elements come on, which is the toaster oven position. So when I want to heat a frozen meal I set the knob to bake setting so only the bottom heat element comes on. I also set the dish on a double sheet of foil, or remove the meal from it's container and place it in an aluminum foil pan. Also, if possible, place the food item that you want to bake in the top position of toaster oven so that its not close to the heat element. If you can't get it in the top position, using the disposable aluminum pan will reduce the chances of the meal burning when on the bottom position. As a side note, if you don't won't to keep buying those foil pans, just line them with a sheet of foil to so you can re-use them a few more times. Lastly, I will just emphasize, use an aluminum foil pan.

I use a convection toaster oven (an "air fryer;" zero difference). It works fine, though you do need to learn it. A light cooking spray helps to crisp them up better, as well as helping to hold any added seasoning: think frozen fries with rosemary, pepper, etc. You may need to experiment with adjusting the temperature and time.

One other thing I'll do is microwave items to heat them up, then use the toaster oven to crisp/dry it up a bit. (That's a general rule, not a fish sticks only rule.) I also never cook anything in a microwave at full power. Cut it back a bunch and let it "heat-soak" and repeat. It takes as long, but it's less hands on.