Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review

If you’re working with a small budget and don’t have a lot of extra space on your countertop, the Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven will give you toasting, baking, broiling, and air frying capabilities in a compact package for a reasonable price. However, you won’t get the stellar performance and extra features that you find on the more expensive models. 

This model from Hamilton Beach is a great choice if you make toast often, heat up frozen pizzas, make breaded chicken for the kids, or perhaps only cook for one or two. If you’re looking for a second oven, it’s not the one to choose as it doesn’t do a good job on baked goods and can’t accommodate a whole chicken. To get the complete lowdown, here’s our full Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review.

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Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review: Price and availability

The Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven is available at Target for $84.99. It’s available in a brushed chrome finish.

Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review: Design

While the Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven has a contemporary brushed chrome housing, it pretty much has the same design as toaster ovens from decades ago. It has a glass door with a small handle on top that opens downward and three dials that serve as controls. At just 9 x 18 x 14 inches, it easily fits under a cabinet and doesn’t take up excess countertop space. 

Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review: Cooking performance

When we tested its air fryer functionality, the Hamilton Beach did a good job of crisping and browning breaded chicken breasts. Although Brussels sprouts and frozen French fries didn’t come out perfectly, they were crispy enough. However, when it came to homemade French fries and chicken wings, it didn’t give much browning and crisping. Broiled hamburgers didn’t come out particularly well-seared either. Using the Bake function, we baked a cake and cookies which each came out very dark and, in the case of the cookies, dried out. A frozen pizza cooked up nicely on top, but the bottom crust was soggy in spots. This toaster oven toasted slices of white bread and bagels evenly. So the performance was a little uneven, but satisfactory on certain recipes.

There’s no preheat function on the Hamilton Beach. For some functions, the manufacturer recommends heating the oven for 5 minutes before cooking. However, preheating is not recommended for air frying and some cooking times were longer than on other models as a consequence.

As in other toaster oven air fryers, a shallow basket is provided for air frying food in a single layer. We were very happy with the browning and crisping on breaded chicken breasts. Brussels sprouts and frozen crinkle fries came out lightly browned and crisped. However, neither chicken wings or French fries came out with the kind of results we’d expect from fried food.

We used the Broil setting to cook four 4-ounce hamburgers. In spite of the fact that they needed 18 minutes to cook to a medium doneness, the burgers were more gray than brown, although they were moist and juicy.

The oven is large enough to hold a 9-inch cake pan. While a yellow cake baked up moist and tender in the recommended time, it didn’t rise very high and the top crust was quite dark and unevenly colored. 

Chocolate chip cookies browned very evenly, but were very dark and dry inside. In spite of its small size, the Hamilton Beach was large enough to heat a 12-inch frozen pizza. It came out browned and bubbly on top, but the bottom crust was soggy in spots.

The Hamilton Beach only has medium and dark toast settings. On medium, it toasted both white bread slices and bagels in 2:50 minutes, as quickly as a pop-up toaster, and toasted very evenly. 

Although it can toast 6 slices at once, in our tests, it didn’t brown the slices in the front as evenly as the ones in the back.

Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review: Ease of use and cleaning

There are no electronic controls on this toaster oven. It has three small dials: one to select the cooking function, one to set the oven temperature, and the third to set the cooking time. While it is certainly uncomplicated to operate, the print on the dials is very small and we found it a struggle to read the settings. Plus, as the dial for setting the time is simply a mechanical timer, it’s hard to set precisely. An oven rack, air frying basket, aluminum baking pan, and slide out crumb tray are included with the oven. There is no light in the oven to let you see how your food is progressing.   

When the oven is operating, the glass door becomes excessively hot, reaching temperatures as high as 339.2°F. The Hamilton Beach is the only toaster oven we tested with a door handle that becomes very hot to the touch at a temperature of 146.8 °F. The oven is extremely quiet as it operates with a dBA reading of 50.4; we virtually couldn’t hear it when it was running.

None of the parts are coated with a nonstick finish and hand washing is recommended. The aluminum baking pan became quite stained and we weren’t able to get it completely clean.

The instructions that come with this product are contained in a leaflet. While it thoroughly explains usage, it doesn’t include cooking charts, recipes, or tips.

Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven review: Verdict

The Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven is considerably smaller and less expensive than the other models we tested. It doesn’t sport electronic controls or a lot of fancy features and settings. However it is simple to operate. While it’s baking performance was disappointing and it’s not large enough to roast a chicken, it shines at toasting and does a credible job of air frying. 

We think it’s a great choice for people who are looking for a traditional toaster oven primarily to toast all kinds of bread, heat frozen pizzas, and air fry chicken nuggets or frozen fries for the kids. It’s not the model for anyone who is looking for a replacement for their full size oven. It’s much cheaper than any other toaster oven we tested — considerably less so than our winning toaster oven, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. However, the performance is a little hit and miss, so be prepared for compromise.