If you find yourself struggling to fit artisanal loaves into your toaster, consider upgrading to a long-slot model. The best long-slot toasters have greater capacity than standard slot toasters, so you can use them to toast irregularly shaped bread, bagels, sliced muffins, and more.
To find the best long-slot toasters, we toasted dozens of slices of fresh and frozen bread of all shapes and sizes. The Breville “A Bit More” Long Slot Toaster earned our best overall spot because it offers the most customizable browning levels and fits multiple slices of bread at once. For under $50, we recommend the Dash ClearView Long Slice Toaster; it’s compact, attractive enough to keep on the counter, and toasts quickly.
If our picks don’t quite meet your needs, our tested guides to the best 4-slice toasters and best toasters have great alternatives for large households or those who like a more traditional design.
Our top picks for the best long-slot toaster
Best overall: Breville “A Bit More” — See at Amazon
Best budget: Dash ClearView — See at Amazon
Best upgrade: Zwilling Infinity 2 — See at Amazon
For the design-conscious: Smeg 4-Slice — See at Amazon
Best overall
Breville ‘A Bit More’ Long Slot Toaster
The Breville “A Bit More” Long Slot Toaster is a modern and thoughtfully designed, high-performance appliance with easy cleanup and user-friendly controls.
Breville’s Long Slot Toaster has a polished and modern look. The toaster is made of brushed stainless steel and the control buttons are clearly labeled with words and steady LED lights. We appreciated the progress light parallel to the browning switch, which removed any “how much longer do we need to wait?” guesswork.
It offers a lot of customizations without feeling overwhelming. The Breville toaster successfully toasted standard slices of bread and sliced bagels, and thanks to the “Frozen” control option, we got an even brown on frozen slices. However, the “A Bit More” button really sets it apart. If your toast pops up and you’re not happy with its level of brownness, you can hit “A Bit More” to give it a slightly longer toast cycle that’s calibrated to darken the bread one more shade without the risk of burning.
Another thoughtful design feature is the High Lift lever. This feature helps lift the toast away from the heat source so you don’t burn your fingers. The lever also has a “Lift and Look” notch that will lift the bread mid-toast so that you can check on its progress without interrupting the cycle. Plus, the crumb tray is flat enough to be fully concealed when using the toaster and spacious enough to catch any errant crumbs or seeds.
This toaster’s price feels reasonable for its overall quality. We recommend it for families, shared living situations, and any household that really enjoys toasted bread products.
Read our full Breville Long-Slot Toaster review to learn more.
Best budget
Dash ClearView Long Slice Toaster
At half the price of many of our other tested toasters, the DASH ClearView Long Slice Toaster works quickly, thoroughly, and with a front window view that lets you watch your toast’s progress.
It’s compact. This streamlined model can easily be tucked away into a small countertop corner or kitchen cabinet, and its plastic facade hides scratches and dings.
It couldn’t be easier to operate. You just push down on the side lever to toast a room-temperature piece of bread. You have settings for bagels or frozen bread, and the temperature knob provides seven browning levels. We were impressed by the Dash ClearView’s speed: it toasted a bagel in just 2 minutes and 20 seconds and fully frozen slices of bread in 2 minutes and 35 seconds. By contrast, the Breville that earned our top-rated position required 3 minutes and 5 seconds to toast frozen bread.
You can watch your bread’s progress. Our favorite feature is a window that allows you to monitor toasting. If you don’t like surprises, you’ll find the window as reassuring as it is fun to watch.
Read our full Dash ClearView Toaster review.
Best upgrade
Zwilling Infinity 2 Long Slot Toaster
The sleek German-designed Zwilling Enfinigy 2 Long Slot Toaster makes a minimalist-chic addition to your kitchen. Its speedy and even toasting ability makes it worth the splurge.
It’s a sleek design. This toaster’s gentle curves and matte stainless steel finish feel crisp and modern. LED lights illuminate the control buttons, and the setting symbols are cleverly designed and easy to interpret.
It can handle any type of bread. The Enfinigy 2’s slots are spacious and can handle irregular bread slice shapes, multiple standard slices, and bagel halves at once.
It toasts very evenly. We found that the toast level was even on all tested bread, the timing was efficient (two and a half minutes for frozen bread and just over two minutes for bagels), and the concealed crumb drawer right at the front of the machine made post-toasting cleanup simple. The temperature knob offers seven browning options, and the push lever can be used to lift the bread out of the slots safely and smoothly.
For the design-conscious
Smeg 4-Slice Toaster
Smeg appliances are synonymous with great style, and the 4-Slice Toaster fits into that proud tradition. This powerful little machine will both perfectly toast your bread and bagels and make your kitchen counter fully Instagrammable.
A very pretty toaster. If aesthetics are as important to you as performance, Smeg’s toaster delivers. Smeg appliances regularly appear in upscale interior design spreads and aspirational influencer posts, and that’s because these retro-inspired items are as photographable as they are useful. The Smeg 4-Slice Toaster can be purchased in eight enamel colors, all with a sleek stainless steel control panel. The toaster features a push lever, a temperature knob with a reheat setting, a Defrost button, and a Bagel button. We did notice that the decal on the Bagel button is more reminiscent of a baguette than a bagel.
Not only top in looks. We experienced quick and easy toasting for standard bread, frozen bread, and bagels — the dark gold color of each toasted bread product was as photogenic as the toaster itself. The extra-wide slots can easily fit multiple bread slices and bagel halves, and the lever knob smoothly lifts the finished toast away from the hot surface when you’re ready to plate. Our testing proved that, at least in the case of the 4-Slice Toaster, Smeg isn’t just a pretty face.
What to look for in a long-slot toaster
Settings: Since slot toasters are, by nature, simple devices to operate, we recommend paying attention to how the best long-slot toasters label the temperature and programming buttons. Is it easy to tell which button does which task, and does the temperature knob offer enough browning options? Is there a “Stop” button to quickly end the toast? Can you add extra cook time without starting a whole new toasting cycle?
Levers: Burnt fingertips are a common risk of slot toasters, so we advise choosing a model with a high-lift lever. This will guide your toasted bread upwards and remove the need to stick your fingers even slightly inside the slots.
Cleanup: The best long-slot toasters can be effectively cleaned by turning them upside down over a trash can and giving them a good shake. Still, a crumb tray is a useful tool for consolidating crumbs, seeds, and other disposable bits. Whether the tray is positioned at the front or back of the toaster, all types work effectively as long as you remember to empty them.
How we test toasters
Our recommendations for the best long-slot toaster are based on hours of hands-on testing. Taylor Tobin/Business Insider
Room-temperature bread slices: We began our toasting tests on the best long-slot toasters by determining how long it would take to toast two standard slices of room-temperature sandwich bread (we put two in each long slot) to “medium” brownness. Then we studied the toasted bread and looked for browning depth and evenness to see if it reached the color that we anticipated over the entire bread surface
Frozen bread slices: We repeated the bread toasting test but with frozen slices. We used the “Defrost” mode on all models that included this option.
Bagels: We sliced a sesame bagel in half and ran it through the toast test (both halves went in the same long slot), programming each toaster to “Bagel” mode.
Cleanup: After each toast cycle, we pulled out the crumb trays and determined how well they collected and consolidated the crumbs and seeds, how easy they were to find and remove, and how easy they were to put back in place.
Long-slot toaster FAQs
What’s the advantage of a long-slot toaster?
As its name suggests, the difference between a “long slot” toaster and a “regular” toaster is the length of the slots. For a toaster to be considered a “long slot,” it should be able to hold two pieces of standard sandwich bread in a single slot with little to no overlap.
Is there a toaster that toasts evenly on both sides?
The Breville “A Bit More” Toaster is your best bet for perfectly balanced toasting. If you have the extra budget, the Zwilling Effingy Toaster also stood out in our testing, producing almost identically browned slices of bread.
Some of our top picks don’t offer the most even toast, but they have other qualities that make them worth considering. Still, none of our top-rated toasters will burn one side and hardly touch the other.
How is a toaster oven different from a long-slot toaster?
Like all other slot toasters, a long slot toaster is designed to achieve one single task: toasting bread and bread products. By contrast, the best toaster ovens can work as a toaster, a mini convection oven, and sometimes an air fryer. Their larger size enables them to toast sandwiches, muffins, and other items that aren’t correctly shaped for slot toasters. They can also bake frozen pizzas and some smaller dishes, broil meat, and even roast vegetables.
What’s the best way to keep your toaster clean?
Unplug the toaster, remove the crumb tray, and clear out the crumbs and seeds. Then, give the crumb tray a rinse and gentle cleansing with soap and a sponge (don’t run it through the dishwasher) before thoroughly drying the tray and replacing it in its spot. Read more in our full guide on how to clean a toaster.
We recommend doing a deep clean a few times a year. Clean the toaster as described above, then turn it upside down over the trash can and give it a firm shake to dislodge any crumbs that may not have made it to the tray. Use gentle soap and water and a soft cloth to wash the exterior of plastic or enamel-coated toasters. For stainless steel, consider following up the soap-and-water cleanse with stainless steel polish to maintain its shine.
