Hamilton Beach Countertop Toaster Oven & Pizza Maker Reviews

Farthest toaster oven a few days ago. So far it has worked outstandingly. Cook's great even cooking. So far I'm very impressed with this toaster oven. Awesome feature the Shelf is adjustable two different heights for cooking baking or broiling it also has a drip tray that slides under the Shelf so if you're cooking meat or anything that would drip and has a drip pan blow up as well as the crumb tray blow that. Very well-thought-out design I'm very impressed with it. And the price was awesome outstanding. I would highly recommend this toaster oven to family friends.

This Hamilton Beach toaster oven is compact for the counter but roomy enough inside. I have made personal size pizzas, 4 pieces of toast, etc. It doesn't get as hot as some of the older larger toaster ovens, but I like that you don't need a heat resistant pad on the counter underneath.

It may take a little while longer to make toast, but it finishes at the same time as frying a couple of eggs, not a big deal.

I just wanted to cook small things without turning on a big oven. It does a good job on fish and also leftovers (pizza). It does a good grilled cheese. If you just want to make toast I would not recommend it. You have to keep moving the bread to get it even.

This thing is perfect for the newly designed Totinos Pizza (now a square). I also use it for the HEB Pre-pared meals (the precooked AND the un-cooked ones too). I used to have to preheat a huge oven, wait 20 minutes, then cook, then have the whole kitchen heat up... seemed like such a waste of energy, time and extra work for the AC to get room cool again. However, this little toaster does not require a preheat for frozen pizza or the HEB Meals. I simply set the settings according to package instructions and add about 3 minutes time for every 10 minutes of cook time suggested. So if it calls for 24 minutes of cook time, ill put it in there for 30; and it comes out perfect. It is smaller than I had expected, but its perfect for just one person. The grill and tray is handy and easy to clean too. See the pics for my two favorite meals...

update: also great for reheating leftover breakfast tacos...(see pic); bought me a second one to bring into my shift work!

What do I want from a toaster oven? Capacity, easy cleanup, and control. Well, the Hamilton Beach 31401 offers 2 out of 3 unproblematically, but the third is a bit more complicated (literally and figuratively).

First, the positives. When the box claims that it can fit four slices of bread, it means it. I was using some particularly wide Pepperidge Farm bread, and I could still easily get 4 slices in. I used this to keep a batch of fried fish warm, too, and it fit the entire pound of fried cod with room to spare. All in all, I doubt anyone would be displeased. The rack slides out, albeit not automatically like some competing products. So you so need to shield your hand to do so. The toasting action is even across the oven (easy to test with 4 slices), and the stated "oven" temperatures seem accurate, too. Cleanup is not difficult, with an easy slide-out panel.

My issue with the thing is the control scheme. As you can see in the picture, there are three knobs. The top is temperature, the middle is mode, and bottom is timer (I guess). The bottom knob has two little icons - a light piece of toast and a dark piece. The space between these icons is... well, there IS no space between them. It's like playing a game of Operation! trying to find just the right "click" for the dial. It is easy to over or undershoot. Then, in addition, the temperature dial at top has to be set correctly to toast. Why would these interact at all? Toasting should have a hard-wired "correct" temp, and should disable the temperature knob altogether. We had several toasting failures because of this. My only presumption can be that the innards of this thing are entirely mechanical, and so it is a "dumb" toaster oven, so to speak. If you turn a knob, it does its thing, regardless of the mode you're in.

Because it does what it sets out to do quite ably (once you figure out the controls), I give it 4 stars. But the hair trigger and the wonky dial scheme won't let me go any higher.