How to Bake, Roast, and Reheat Everything Using a Compact Toaster Oven

If you are cooking in a small apartment, a dorm room, or an RV, you already know the problem. The full-size oven takes forever to preheat. It heats the whole room. And half the time you are only trying to cook dinner for one or two people anyway, so firing up that big box feels wasteful. I went almost six months avoiding my apartment oven entirely after I figured out that my BLACK+DECKER TO1313SBD toaster oven could handle nearly everything I needed, and handle it faster.

This guide walks through exactly how to use a compact toaster oven for baking, roasting, and reheating. Not vague tips, specific steps and settings. Whether you are brand new to countertop ovens or you have one sitting on your counter that you only use for toast, this will help you get a lot more out of it.

What the BLACK+DECKER TO1313SBD Can Actually Do

Before getting into the steps, it helps to know what this particular oven is built for. The TO1313SBD is a four-function model: bake, broil, toast, and keep warm. It runs up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, fits a 9-inch pizza or a 4-pound chicken, and has a 30-minute timer with a stay-on setting. The rack inside can be positioned higher or lower depending on whether you want more top heat (good for broiling and browning) or more even circulation (better for baking).

It does not have a convection fan, which means it is not going to crisp things quite the way a convection oven would. But for everyday baking and roasting tasks in a small kitchen, that matters a lot less than most people think. The broil setting compensates nicely for browning the top of dishes. And the smaller interior actually means more even heat than a full-size oven where hot spots are common near the heating elements.

One thing worth noting early: the TO1313SBD runs hot. If a recipe says 375 degrees, you will often get better results at 350 in this oven, especially for baking. Keep that in mind as you work through the steps below. A small oven thermometer, the kind you hang on the rack, costs about four dollars and is worth having if you bake regularly.

Step 1: Set Up Your Oven Correctly Before You Cook

Place the toaster oven on a flat, stable surface with at least four inches of clearance on all sides, especially the top and back. The oven vents heat from the rear and from the top of the door, and trapping that heat causes the outside of the oven to get much hotter than it should. Do not push it flush against a cabinet or wall.

Set the rack position before you turn the oven on. For baking (muffins, cookies, small casseroles), use the middle rack position. For broiling or getting a crisp top on something, use the upper position. For roasting meat low and slow, use the lower position. The TO1313SBD has two rack positions and it is easier to adjust them cold than after the oven has been running for ten minutes.

Always preheat. Even though this oven gets up to temperature in about five minutes (versus the fifteen to twenty minutes a full-size oven takes), skipping the preheat leads to uneven cooking and soggy bottoms on baked goods. Set the temperature, let it run for five minutes, then put your food in.

Step 2: Baking in a Compact Oven

Baking in a toaster oven works almost identically to baking in a full-size oven, with one important adjustment: drop your temperature by about 25 degrees and start checking your food a few minutes early. Because the oven interior is smaller and the heating elements are closer to the food, things bake a little faster and can brown more aggressively on top.

Use dark-colored baking pans sparingly. Dark metal absorbs more heat, and in a small oven that is already running hot, you can end up with overdone bottoms before the center is done. Light or silver pans give you more control. The TO1313SBD comes with a small baking pan, but if you are baking cookies or roasting vegetables, a quarter-sheet pan (9 by 13 inches) fits perfectly and gives you more surface area.

Some things that bake beautifully in this oven: banana bread in a small loaf pan, brownies in an 8-by-8 pan (cut in half to fit), individual muffins, biscuits, and frozen pies or tarts. For anything with a cheese topping or a browned crust, this oven actually does a better job than many full-size ovens because the top element is closer and heats more directly.

Step 3: Roasting Vegetables and Proteins

Roasting is where the TO1313SBD earns its keep for a lot of small-kitchen cooks. A full-size oven roasting a single chicken breast or a sheet pan of broccoli is like driving a semi-truck to pick up a quart of milk. The toaster oven is the right-sized tool for meals that serve one to three people.

For roasting vegetables, toss them in a little oil and spread them in a single layer on the included pan or a quarter-sheet pan. Do not crowd them. Crowded vegetables steam instead of roast, and you end up with soft and soggy instead of caramelized and a little crisp at the edges. Set the oven to 400 degrees (375 in the TO1313SBD, since it runs a little hot), use the bake function, and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, turning once halfway through.

For proteins, a boneless chicken breast takes about 22 to 25 minutes at 375 degrees. A couple of salmon fillets take about 12 to 14 minutes at 400 degrees. A small pork tenderloin takes about 25 minutes. For any protein over an inch thick, use a meat thermometer rather than relying on time alone. The oven interior can have slight hot spots near the elements, so checking with a thermometer guarantees you are not undercooking the center.

The toaster oven is ready to cook in five minutes. My apartment oven took twenty. That is fifteen minutes I got back every single night.

Step 4: Use the Broil Setting for Browning and Finishing

The broil function on the TO1313SBD is one of the most useful things about this oven, and most people barely touch it. Broiling means the top heating element runs at full blast while the bottom stays off or minimal. The food gets direct high heat from above, which browns cheese, crisps bread, chars peppers, and finishes a steak with a good crust.

To broil, move the rack to the upper position and give the oven about three minutes to heat up on the broil setting. Then slide your food in and watch it closely. Things go fast under the broil element. A slice of bread crisps in two to three minutes. A layer of shredded cheese melts and bubbles in about two minutes. A halved tomato takes about five minutes to get a little charred on top. Stay nearby and do not walk off. Broiling in a small oven is fast and unforgiving if you forget about it.

A useful technique: cook your protein most of the way through on the bake setting, then switch to broil for the last three to four minutes to get a golden-brown top. This works particularly well for chicken thighs (crisp the skin at the end), open-face sandwiches, and anything with a breadcrumb or cheese topping.

Step 5: Reheating Without Ruining the Food

This is the one where the toaster oven beats the microwave completely. A microwave reheats by vibrating water molecules, which makes things steam from the inside out. That is why microwave-reheated pizza goes soggy and reheated fries turn into wet mush. A toaster oven reheats with dry heat from all sides, which means pizza comes back with a crisp crust, fries get their crunch back, and roasted vegetables taste roasted again instead of steamed.

For reheating pizza, set the oven to 375 degrees on the bake setting and let it preheat. Place the slice directly on the rack (not on the pan) so the bottom gets direct heat and crisps up. Three to five minutes is usually enough for a refrigerator-cold slice. If you want even crispier results, put the slice on the pan for the first three minutes, then pull the pan out and slide the slice directly onto the rack for the last two minutes.

For reheating a full meal, like leftover roasted chicken and vegetables, cover the dish loosely with a small piece of foil to hold in some moisture for the first half of the reheating time, then remove the foil for the last few minutes to let the outside firm up. This prevents the food from drying out while still giving it the texture of freshly cooked rather than microwaved. Set the oven to 325 degrees and give it ten to twelve minutes for most leftovers.

For reheating things like french fries, tater tots, or fried chicken, skip any foil entirely. Use the bake setting at 400 degrees and spread the food in a single layer. The goal is hot dry air circulating around every piece. Five to eight minutes brings most fried foods back to something close to their original crispiness.

What Else Helps When You Cook Small

A few tools make the toaster oven even more useful. First, a small offset spatula or a pair of tongs that fit inside the oven cavity. The TO1313SBD's interior is about 15 inches wide and 12 inches deep, which is comfortable for most tasks but a little tight for pulling out pans with bulky oven mitts. A small spatula makes transferring food in and out a lot easier. Second, parchment paper cut to fit the baking pan. It makes cleanup fast and prevents sticking without needing to spray the pan every time. Third, a cheap oven thermometer, as mentioned earlier, because knowing your actual temperature versus the dial setting removes most of the guesswork from baking.

One more thing: clean the crumb tray regularly. The TO1313SBD has a removable crumb tray on the bottom, and it collects drips and crumbs that can burn and smoke if you let them build up. Pulling it out and wiping it down every three or four uses keeps the oven performing well and prevents that unpleasant burning smell from developing. The interior walls can be wiped with a damp cloth once the oven is completely cool. Do not use abrasive cleaners on the interior, since it will scratch the coating.

Who Gets the Most Out of This Approach

If you are cooking for one or two people, this method works extremely well. The TO1313SBD is sized for small households, and the portion sizes you naturally cook for yourself map almost perfectly to what fits on the oven's rack. A single chicken breast, a handful of vegetables, a batch of six muffins, a small loaf of banana bread. These are the meals it was designed for.

If you are in an apartment or dorm where the provided oven is old, inconsistent, or just slow to heat, replacing it functionally with a toaster oven makes a meaningful difference in how much you actually cook at home. Many apartment ovens run uneven or poorly calibrated. The TO1313SBD, while not perfect, is at least consistent once you dial in the 25-degree adjustment.

If you are cooking in an RV or a small cabin kitchen where counter space and electrical load both matter, the TO1313SBD draws about 1200 watts, which is well within what most RV shore power setups can handle. It also takes up a footprint of about 15.5 by 11 inches on the counter, which is compact enough to slide onto most RV counters without sacrificing your prep space. For a deeper look at how the TO1313SBD holds up over time, the long-term review covers eighteen months of daily apartment cooking in a lot more detail.

If you are someone who avoids their full-size oven because it makes the whole kitchen too hot in the summer, the toaster oven is the practical fix. It puts out a fraction of the ambient heat, cools down quickly after you are done, and does not run long enough to noticeably raise your room temperature on most meals. That alone makes it worth the counter space for a lot of small-kitchen cooks who stop using their full oven from May through September.