Your toaster oven may be the most underused piece of cooking equipment in your home. While there are many foods you can prepare in this small oven, many people use it solely for the basics, such as making toast and warming up food. Yet, these ovens use less electricity than a full-size oven and take up less space in your kitchen - meaning it's time to consider some new uses for this versatile appliance. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Single Servings
Toaster ovens easily accommodate a number of single-serving or "serves 2" foods. This makes it a good choice for people who live alone, and even for kids to make a quick afternoon snack. The advantage of cooking smaller servings is that you have the option of cooking ready-made or prepackaged foods. Chicken tenders or chicken fingers, French fries, garlic bread and personal pizzas are all good options. You can keep a larger bag of the food stored in your freezer and cook 1-2 servings at a time, when needed. Another option is cooking a single frozen hamburger or turkey burger in the toaster oven for dinner or lunch.
Appetizers
Appetizers, for example roasted vegetables and garlic toast points, are easy toaster oven foods.
To make roasted vegetables, simply cut your vegetables - say a zucchini, an eggplant and some onions - into bite-size pieces and brush them with olive oil. Then sprinkle salt, pepper, garlic and any other seasonings that you like on top. Cover the cooking sheet in your toaster oven with aluminum foil, place the vegetables on top and bake for 6-10 minutes. Serve the finished product with toothpicks and garlic butter.
For garlic toast points, cut pita bread into triangles and rub garlic over the top. Then drizzle olive oil on the pieces and bake for 7-10 minutes until crisp and crunchy.
Main Dishes
Toaster oven are also perfect to bake main dishes, such as toaster oven pizzas. This dish is great for a family because everyone chooses exactly what toppings they want on their pizza. Simply take English muffins and top with pizza sauce, cheese and other toppings such as mushrooms, pepperoni, onions and green papers and bake for 8-10 minutes until hot and the cheese has melted.
You can also make a lasagna in the toaster oven by substituting zucchini for your pasta. Layer slices of zucchini with sausage or ground beef, ricotta and mozzarella cheese and pasta sauce. Then bake the combination for 30-35 minutes in the toaster oven until heated through.
Tags: toaster oven, toaster oven, garlic toast, garlic toast points, minutes until, option cooking