Ways You've Been Using Your Toaster All Wrong

The problem with toasters is they're almost too simple to use. Buy a $2,000 refrigerator and you will, in all likelihood, at least skim through the manual. The same goes for any other large, expensive, or semi-sophisticated appliance. But not toasters: often costing no more than a school-night visit to a bar, and usually featuring less than half a dozen simple controls, the only reason most people even touch the manual is to pick it up off the floor and dump it in the trash. That's a mistake. 

Making a piece of toast is much like many other apparently simple acts, like sex, or voting: you don't need to know much to get it done, but do a little research first and you might have less to regret when you're done. So for fewer regrets and better toast, read on.

Buying sliced bread is very convenient (after all, no one remembers what the best thing was before it came along), but if you use it to make toast you're making a mistake. That's because bread comes in many varieties and textures, from ultra light and fluffy, to dense and heavy. And since your toaster probably has only one temperature setting, the only other way to affect the final outcome is with the thickness of the bread. The perfect piece of toast, according to experts and denied by no one ever, is crispy on the outside but soft and moist on the inside. To achieve that, you should expose the bread to enough heat that the outside gets crisp before the inside dries out, but if you start out with a quarter-inch-thick piece of pre-sliced soft bread and a lazy toaster, that's just not going to happen. However, if you slice your own and make that soft bread an inch thick, even a $10 two-slice student special has half a chance of getting it right. Heavier bread needs more time to crisp the outside and should be cut thinner to avoid a doughy center. For those new to cutting their own bread, getting consistent and even slices can take lots and lots of practice ... but remember, that's lots and lots of delicious buttery practice, so don't skimp.

Despite what some British tabloids would have you believe, there is no one perfect way to make toast. In the real world, some bread is thicker, and some is thinner. Some toasters cook hotter, and others cook colder. So the settings for the "perfect" slice of toast will change depending on the type of bread you have at hand, the behavior of the toaster you own, and even the temperature and age of the bread on the day you use it. If you're serious about your slice, you should be adjusting the settings almost every time you insert a piece of bread. Consider that in the morning when you first turn on your toaster, it will start at room temperature then warm up to its operating temperature as it runs through its cycle. But if you decide you want another couple of slices and turn the machine back on straight away, the residual heat left over from the first round could cause the second round of toast to burn. As a general guide: turn down the dial if the bread is softer, older, warmer, or thinner than the last piece, or if the machine is already hot. But if the bread if fresher, denser, colder, or cut thicker than the last piece, feel free to let it run longer. Or you could just leave the settings alone and accept that your life now includes badly made toast ... but then you might find it also includes shopping in your pajamas and a peer group mostly comprised of cats.

Toast is great, everyone agrees — that's why there is an appliance dedicated to it. But unfortunately that greatness (and our inability to adjust the toaster correctly) gets the better of us occasionally. The problem is compounded by hunger and usually occurs shortly after you press the lever down. You're eager to eat your toast, but you don't trust the toaster not to burn it. So after a short period of time, just to see how the Maillard reaction is coming along, you hit the cancel button to pop the toast and check the progress. Of course the toast isn't ready, so you push the lever down again to give it a little more time — and then forget about it. By the time the second cycle comes to its natural conclusion, the toast is (naturally) burnt. The best way to avoid this scenario is to learn the settings for your toaster, use them correctly, and leave it to do its magical work in peace.

Toasters are something of a specialist appliance. They do one thing quite well: they make toast. But if you want some cheese on that toast, use something else ... right? Putting cheese in a toaster is usually an incredibly bad idea because there's a good chance it will just melt into the heating elements and catch fire. But toasters are just too convenient to not use them to make grilled cheese. That's why the universe gave us Toastabags. Made from a Teflon-like material, Toastabags are small fireproof pockets that allow you to make a grilled cheese sandwich in a toaster without risk of fire. You can even reheat pizza or a panini, make French toast, or even just melt down a big lump of cheese for some kind of late-night drunken fondue party. Now the only limit is your imagination and the width of your toaster slot.

We've told you about Toastabags, and we're going to say it again: you need to get some of these. They're advertised mainly for making sandwiches (and yes, they're reusable), but if you're not thinking outside the box, you're not getting enough out of your toaster.

What else should you be making inside a Toastabag? Try heating up a veggie burger for a quick lunch, and you'll be impressed at how mushy it's not. If you love fried food (and you do), you'll know how disappointing fried leftovers are. Don't microwave them — heat them up in your Toastabags instead. It's as close to magic as you'll get. You can even toast up a few tortilla shells, and you'll have almost instant chips.

Now, here's a tip we almost guarantee you've never thought of: sweet potato toast. Just slice the ends off a sweet potato, then cut it into slices that will fit inside your toaster. You'll have a hot sweet potato in minutes, perfect solo, with some sweet toppings, or in a sandwich. See? Think outside the box!

If you're still having toaster issues, you might want to look at the toaster itself. Gone are the days when all toasters were created equal, and getting the right one for your family is more complicated than you might think. Compact Appliance has a handy buyer's guide with great tips on what kind of toaster you should actually be getting.

If you're mostly going to be using it for bread, a standard pop-up toaster will be fine. But if you're going to be using this for things like bagels, waffles, hamburger buns, or Texas toast, you're going to want to invest in a pop-up toaster that has extra-wide slots. It'll make life easier, trust us.

If you want to use your toaster for more things, think about a toaster oven. With this, you'll have all the toast you want, plus that grilled cheese you tried to hack your toaster into making. It's also an ideal kitchen gadget for quick lunches and snacks, too, from hot sandwiches to pizza bagels. It might be worth the investment.