Therefore, there you are staring at this gigantic stainless steel box, which needs to warm up for twenty minutes. Frankly, cooking even two slices of pizza in the conventional oven is like driving a monster truck to the mailbox. It is not only time-consuming and energy-wasting process, but also it consumes a lot of your precious resources, which are in high demand among high school students. Luckily, the problem can be easily solved by replacing the giant box with a toaster oven.

First of all, you need to buy the correct appliance. Forget about an affordable option, which has only one knob that allows to set temperature from one to ten. Go for a toaster oven with a digital control and enough capacity to accommodate a nine inch pizza or four slices of toast. The best model to consider is the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro, while another good choice is the Ninja Foodi Digital Air Fry Oven.

The second step you need to do is to think about the placement of the appliance. You cannot simply place the machine in any corner. These devices produce quite hot air, thus you should leave at least four inches of space around each side of the appliance to avoid burning the cabinetry. Consider toaster ovens as mini dragons, which require free space before they start burning your bagel bites.

Then comes the moment when you need to abandon your usual cooking methods. The temperature you have to set in the toaster oven is different from the one you set in the oven. The thing is that toaster ovens warm up pretty fast, and the heating elements are located very close to the food, so usually you need to decrease the temperature by twenty-five degrees. If you are supposed to bake something at 400 degrees according to the instructions, you should set your toaster oven to 375 degrees, or otherwise, you will burn everything.

What is more, you need to think about the cookware, since you cannot just place that huge metal sheet pan in a toaster oven. Get yourself some quarter sheet pans or toaster oven trays or get used to eating your sad and burnt leftover from a microwave. Moreover, don’t place a piece of foil directly on the heating elements, or you would be able to start a kitchen fire to avoid doing your homework.

The last thing you need to pay attention to is the cleaning process. Almost all toaster ovens have the removable crumb tray in the bottom of the machine. All you need to do is to empty the crumb tray once a week, and you would look like a professional chef. Of course, this process is much easier than scraping the burnt cheese from the bottom of the oven rack.

To conclude, go for it. Your electricity bill will become smaller, and your snacks will become tastier. In addition, you will be able to restore the giant oven for its proper purpose – storing all those unused pots and pans.