Tired of waiting while your toaster oven slowly makes your toast? Wish you could have the quickness that a toaster brings, but with the added benefits of a countertop oven? If you answered yes, then what you need to look for is a toaster oven that has infrared heating.

What is infrared heating you might ask? Infrared heating is way to eliminate preheating your oven by transferring instantaneous heat to your food. The beauty of it is that through the use of near infrared heating (uses ceramic elements) and far infrared heating (uses quartz elements), your food is cooked both on the inside and on the outside at about 40% faster than a traditional oven. That time saved is precious and is one of the top reasons why these type of toaster ovens are popular.

Currently, the most reviewed and popular infrared toaster oven on the market is the Panasonic NB-G110P Flash Xpress. Panasonic had taken the previous model, the NB-G100P, off the market for a brief time, but has now reintroduced it again with the NB-G110P and judging from the rapid rise in reviews on Amazon.com, it appears that consumers are very happy the company did so.

The boxy countertop oven is on the small side, which cuts down on what can be placed inside, but consumers seem to look past that and reward it for its very fast cooking. Consumers report that the oven does a good job of toasting bread, all kinds, and is great for cooking small frozen items like French fries and reheating foods.

The oven is digitally controlled and there are 6 preset modes to pick from. All have predetermined times and temperatures for the type of food being cooked. There is also a regular oven mode, however, that you can set. If you prefer this mode, you can set the temperature between 250 to 500 degrees and there is a maximum time of 25 minutes. If your food requires more time, you will have to repeat the process.

What should know before you buy

If you are thinking about buying the Panasonic Flash Xpress, there are some things you should know beforehand as this may or may not be the best choice for you.

First, if you are an oven lover and prefer to use a countertop oven instead of a large traditional oven, then the Panasonic NB0G110P is probably not the best choice. Due to its small size, there isn't much room to do a lot of baking. You can bake things like pies, cakes, and cookies, but you will have to reduce the size or the number of cookies, which may not be ideal. Also, forget about large size meats. This oven will not fit them. It says that it can fit a 9 inch pizza, which it can, but it may be difficult to find one in this size as most of the ones available are larger than 9 inches.

While the NB-G110P does a good job of heating things evenly, compared to other toaster ovens, it is not perfect. The unit usually heats more towards the back of the oven, so items placed back there will become more done than in the front. Also, because the rack can't be adjusted, the bottom of the food will cook more so than top due to the close proximity of the heating element.

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