I didn’t grow up in a household that used a toaster oven. For toast, we used a standard toaster and anything else we put in the oven or microwave, or cooked on the stovetop. A few years ago my husband and I traded our small New York City apartment for a spacious home in the suburbs. Heady with the amount of counter space in my new kitchen, I went on an appliance shopping spree and splurged on a Breville coffee maker, a Vitamix blender and a toaster oven from De’Longhi — the last of which quickly became my favorite cooking tool. It was faster than a standard toaster to preheat, and it also had air fry and broil functions. So, when I was offered the opportunity to test out the Tovala Smart Oven Pro, I was intrigued but skeptical it could beat the toaster oven I was already using. Spoiler alert: It did.
Below, you’ll find a more in-depth review of what my experience with Tovala’s Smart Oven Pro was like, plus other helpful information like pricing and functionality.
SKIP AHEAD What is the Tovala Smart Oven Pro? | How does the Tovala Smart Oven Pro meal subscription work? | How I tried the Tovala Smart Oven Pro | My experience with Tovala Smart Oven Pro | Who is the Tovala Smart Oven Pro for?
The Tovala Smart Oven Pro ($349) is a toaster oven with six different functions: bake, broil, toast, reheat, air fry and steam food. Beyond the appliance, Tovala also has a meal subscription service allowing you to select a certain number of meals per week that it will send to your home. The packaging on these meals has a QR code that you scan and once you place it in the oven, it automatically cooks your meal perfectly.
The Smart Oven Pro weighs 20.9-pounds and can fit a 10” pizza, a 4-pound chicken or two of the Tovala meals, according to the brand. It also comes with a few accessories to make cooking easier — like a dishwasher-safe air fry basket and baking sheet, oven mitt, oven rack and crumb tray. One of the biggest differentiators between the Smart Oven Pro and a regular toaster oven is that it’s WiFi-enabled and connects to the Tovala app. Through the app, you can look up recipes and enable it to send messages to your phone when food is finished cooking.
Dimensions: 18.5 x 12.32 x 11.75 in | Colors: Charcoal Black | Wi-Fi connected: Yes
How does the Tovala Smart Oven Pro meal subscription work?
When you purchase the Tovala Smart Oven Pro, you have the option of buying it at a discounted price if you sign up for six weeks worth of their ready-made meal subscription. You can choose between getting four, six, eight, ten, twelve or sixteen meals per week and each meal starts at $9.99 a serving.
Similar to Sun Basket or Blue Apron, the meals come with most of the prep work already done, so you just need to combine and cook the items included in each meal kit. Tovala has a variety of meals for those with dietary restrictions, such as vegetarian, gluten-free, carb conscious or pescatarian, but you can also filter by bestsellers or themes like ‘date night’ and ‘global flavors’. While most of the meals offered through Tovala’s service are dinners or lunches, there are a number of breakfasts, snacks and desserts available, too.
Each meal you order feeds one person and the meals are shipped in a cooler and last in your fridge between two and seven days after they arrive. If you cannot use them in time, Tovala offers instructions on how to freeze them for later use. Each meal is packaged individually in a small box that has a QR code on it. When you’re ready to cook it, you can use the scanner on your Smart Oven Pro to read the QR and the oven will automatically set the appropriate cooking function and timer for that meal. You can also use the scanner on over 1,000 brand name grocery items to set the oven to the right function and timing for those foods.
You select your meals a week in advance (they have over 35 to choose from at one time) and you can pause, skip or cancel your meals at any time.
How I tried the Tovala Smart Oven Pro
Tovala sent me their Smart Oven Pro, along with four meals to try — the “Special Sauce” Omaha Sirloin Cheeseburger, Sweet Chili-Glazed Salmon, Chicken Potsticker Bowl and Mushroom Gnocchi Alfredo. They also sent a bundt cake dessert and cheddar chive biscuits.
I tried the food over the course of a week and used the oven to bake, air fry and toast items for a month. My kitchen is spacious with plenty of counter space, so I have room for a toaster oven (along with a variety of other appliances).
As I mentioned, a toaster oven is one of my most-used kitchen appliances. I use it daily to do things like toast bread, roast broccoli, cook salmon, make frozen pizza and more.
My experience with the Tovala Smart Oven Pro
Overall, I was extremely impressed with the Tovala Smart Oven Pro and the brand’s meal subscription service. In fact, my former toaster oven is still stored in my basement and I’ve continued using the one from Tovala — that’s how much I like it. Below, I walk through every step of using the toaster and what I think you should know before buying.
Delivery
The Smart Oven Pro was shipped directly to my home in a large box. Unboxing it was quite simple — it was protected, but not cumbersome to remove and set up. As mentioned, the Tovala Smart Oven Pro comes with a number of accessories, each of which were individually wrapped in plastic. Having lived in both a small New York City apartment and now in an average-sized home, I wouldn’t have had room for this appliance and the many accessories in a tiny kitchen. That said, I now have plenty of room. It tucks nicely in the corner of my kitchen and I store the accessories in a cabinet with things like cutting boards and other small appliances (like my waffle maker and food processor).
I was even more impressed by how the meals were delivered. The meals, which are individually packaged, come in a large shipping box that’s lined with ice packs. I tend to be someone who gets a little nervous about food packaging and freshness — I’m of the mindset that if you even think there’s a chance an item went bad or wasn’t stored properly, it is better to toss it. In the past, this has always made me iffy about meal delivery services because I worry if they’re not shipped properly, I’ll be getting potentially spoiled food. I didn’t have this concern with Tovala because I immediately noticed how intentional they were with how they packaged the food. The proteins (in my case salmon and beef) were placed directly on the bottom ice packs to ensure they stayed cold. Then, other items, which were less likely to spoil, were placed gently on top of the proteins. Also nice: All of the meal boxes come with “best by” dates prominently printed on the front so you know when you need to use them by.
Setup
I tend to be a fairly tech-savvy person, so I wasn’t overly worried about setting up the Tovala Smart Oven Pro. The first thing you’re instructed to do is download the Tovala app, which is available for both Apple and Android phones. The app helps you set the oven up, lets you order meals and check how much time you have left during cooking. It also has toaster oven-friendly recipes should you choose not to use the meal delivery service. I followed the setup directions which instructed me to place the crumb tray inside the oven and fill the steamer basket with water (there’s a small spouted cup that makes this simple). Next, I had to warm up the oven for twenty minutes. The directions mentioned I may notice a smell when I did this, but nothing was noticeable to me.
As the oven cooled back down from that initial heating, I moved on to setting up the tech. This included registering my oven in the app and connecting it to WiFi. It took three tries for me to connect to WiFi — I’m not sure if this was a problem on my end or if something was going on with the Tovala app. Nevertheless, on the third try I was successful and my oven has stayed connected ever since.
Though this smart oven definitely takes a little longer to set up than a traditional oven you just plug in and can use, I didn’t find it difficult at all.
Meal kits
On the first night I set up the toaster oven, I chose to make the “Special Sauce” Sirloin Burger and my husband opted for the Sweet Chili-Glazed Salmon. The proteins were packaged separately for each meal and all of the accouterments were packaged in separate boxes (one for each meal). Both also included a recipe card with instructions and a QR code.
The ingredients that came with the meals were all very fresh and everything was pre-measured, which made prep work very easy. While you can technically make two meals at once in the Tovala Smart Oven Pro, you can’t make two separate meals at once if they require different temperatures and timing. This meant it took twice as long to cook dinner for my husband and I since we had different meals.
Once cooked, I found the meals offered through the subscription service totally adequate in flavor and taste. The portion sizes were filling without feeling like there was too much food and the meals were definitely fancier and felt more sophisticated than weeknight meals I normally make myself. I wouldn’t say I was obsessed with the meals, though my husband gave everything higher ratings than I did — so this really comes down to taste and preference.
It’s a nice option to have on nights I needed something quick and didn’t want to think about what to make. Because I have a toddler, I’m not sure this meal delivery service is the most practical for my lifestyle if I’m trying to feed my entire family. The meals were a little too sophisticated for her tastes, so on nights we cooked them, I had to make her a separate dinner before cooking our food. In my experience, these meals best suit my pre-mom life or for nights when my husband is out and I wanted something quick for myself.
Toasting and cooking
While the available meal service is a large part of what makes the Tovala Smart Oven Pro unique, at the end of the day it’s a kitchen appliance that needs to deliver — and I found that it definitely does. As mentioned the oven has the ability to bake, broil, toast, reheat, air fry and steam food.
I find that I tend to use the bake and toast function most, though I definitely use the air fry function occasionally, too. I actually use my toaster oven to bake items more often than I use my large oven because it tends to preheat more quickly. I love that the Tovala gives you a countdown on how long it will take to reach your selected temperature. When it reaches the right temperature, it beeps and sends an alert to your phone. This is so much more helpful than my regular oven, which just has a light that turns off when the preheating is complete. While testing the oven, I used it to bake a small batch of cookies, roast broccoli and other veggies, and even bake bacon (my preferred cooking method for the breakfast staple). Every time, my chosen food came out exactly as I had hoped it would.
I also used the toast function almost daily to make my daughter her preferred breakfast of toast. Once you select the toast function, you can select how many slices you are putting in the oven (one through six) and it will adjust the time to give your bread a medium toast. If you want a darker toast, you just have to increase the number of slices you say you’re putting in. (There’s not a standard light to dark dial to turn, it’s all based on the number of slices in the oven.) Because I’ve been using a toaster oven for some time, I’m used to the fact that toasting takes much longer than if you’re using a standard toaster — it roughly will take you at least five minutes to toast bread. Those who aren’t used to this may find that length of time to be annoying.
I found the air frying function to be the most confusing to figure out. On my previous toaster oven there was a button for air frying (just like there was one for baking and toasting). There’s no such button on the Tovala. I spent a decent amount of time trying to figure it out intuitively before consulting the manual. With the Tovala, you simply set the bake function to the preferred temperature and then use the included air frying basket to air fry your food.
While these were the functions I used most frequently, I did try all of the offered settings. Overall, I found they all worked as intended and didn’t find any specific function to be lacking.
Smart features
For me, where the Tovala Smart Oven Pro really stands out is outside of the meal subscription service. Being able to scan frozen foods I got from my local grocery store and have the oven automatically start preheating has been a huge help — it means I don’t have to scan the box for instructions and manually set it. I tested this function on some of my household staples — including frozen pizza from Trader Joe’s, waffles from Kodiak Cakes and a burrito from Amy’s Kitchen — and they all registered and worked with the scanner.
Through the app, you can also find a number of recipes. I wanted to make chicken salad and needed to cook chicken breasts. I found a simple chicken breast recipe on the Tovala app and prepared my chicken breasts per the instructions. I then pushed the cook button in the app and it sent a signal to my oven to start preheating. This felt so much easier than having to search for a recipe online and separately set up my oven.
Who is the Tovala Smart Oven Pro for?
After dining on meals from Tovala over the course of a week, the subscription service is best suited for those who live in a single or two-person household. The fresh ingredients feel more elevated than frozen meals, but the prep time is nearly as quick as something you’d pull from the freezer. While there are plenty of meal delivery services on the market, none pair directly with an oven for easier cooking. This is a nice feature that makes cooking even quicker, since you don’t have to fiddle with settings.
Based on my experience, the Smart Oven Pro from Tovala itself is a handy tool for any home cook who has room on their countertop. Being able to scan popular grocery store foods to automatically set and time your oven saves you a surprising amount of time. Beyond that, having six cooking functions in one device is convenient and means you don’t have to invest in multiple appliances (like an air fryer, a toaster and a steamer).
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed using the Tovala Smart Oven Pro — so much so that I have already recommended it to a few pals who are in the market for a toaster oven. The ability to pair it with a meal subscription makes it unique and the smart features add a lot of efficiency. At $349, it’s not cheap, though. For those looking for a more straightforward, affordable option, consider Cuisinart’s Classic Toaster Oven ($99) or the Wonder Oven from Our Place ($195) though neither of them have smart features.
Why trust NBC Select?
Bethany Heitman is a contributor for NBC Select and regularly covers beauty, home and lifestyle topics. For this story, she spent over a month testing the Tovala Smart Oven Pro (which the brand sent her) paying particular attention to ease of use, cooking quality and versatility.
Catch up on Select’s in-depth coverage of personal finance, tech and tools, wellness and more, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to stay up to date.
Leave a Reply