Toaster Oven Vs Air Fryer: Which Is Best For A Crispy Grilled Cheese?

The cheese sandwiches we see in advertisements are always perfect: Thick, white bread, toasted into deep golden color, sliced diagonally to reveal gooey cheese strings. However, for those of us with busy lives, we're all too familiar with blackened bread and rubbery cheese. So, what can we do to fill the crunchy, melty, grilled-cheese-shaped hole in our lives? Firing up the oven is even more work, and hopefully we all know that putting grilled cheese in the toaster is a bad idea, so we're left with the popular newer kitchen appliances — air fryers and toaster ovens. When it comes to grilled cheese, the air fryer is the king of crispiness: 360-degree airflow dries the bread while simultaneously toasting it and melting the cheese. There are still some drawbacks, though, and a toaster oven is still a perfectly viable option for your grilled cheese.

Some review outlets give the air fryer grilled cheese top marks and shun the toaster oven, citing the unbeatable crispiness of the air-fried bread and the speed of cooking and cleanup. On the other hand, some reviewers encountered one of the few drawbacks of the gadget: Processed cheeses tend to burn in an air fryer, rather than melt. High-moisture cheeses, like mozzarella, have the opposite problem where they melt too quickly and drip out from between the slices of bread.

If you've never owned either appliance, you might still be confused about the difference between air fryers and toaster ovens, but the way they work is the key to their grilled cheese results. Toaster ovens work almost exactly like regular ovens, using heating elements on the floor and ceiling of the device to gently bake or toast food. That means you can still make a great grilled cheese sandwich in a toaster oven, and you don't even need to worry about what type of cheese you're using (though you may not get the enduring crunchiness you would from an air fryer).

If you're craving the crispiest possible grilled cheese sandwich, the air fryer is going to be your undisputed champion. If you don't have one, you can still chase the crunch with cooking tricks like using coconut oil, which gives your grilled cheese an ultimate crisp. Perhaps one of the best qualities of the grilled cheese is its versatility; try any of these 10 celebrity chef-level variations, and you might just find that cheese sandwiches have become your new favorite food.