Top 5 Countertop Pizza Ovens 2023
If you have an appetite for pizza, it’s obvious you have looked into alternative ways you can enjoy your favourite snack without going through so much trouble. Pizza stones might not be an option for you and a gas, electric or wood fired oven might be too big to fit into your small space. Even if you can afford the big electric ovens, space might be an issue.
A countertop pizza maker is your best alternative if your space is small or you don’t want to spend a lot on pizza ovens or pizza stones.
With a countertop pizza oven, making pizza and other snacks is convenient and fast. Some of the top-rated designs can bake a pizza with the same flavour as that baked at a Pizzeria using pizza stones or a wood fire oven. You get the same cracker, crispy crust – and it’s even hard to tell the difference.
These contemporary pizza makers have an advantage over the gas and electric ovens. The latter do not always cook your fresh or frozen pizza to perfection.
With a conventional oven, some parts of the crust can come out burnt while other parts remain uncooked. And even when you try different settings and modify the temperatures, the pizza could still come out in an unfashionable way.
Save yourself the frustrations – get yourself a countertop pizza maker.
We review the top 5 of the best countertop pizza ovens.
Let’s begin!
G3 Ferrari Delizia 1XP20000 Pizza Maker
Top of the list is the G3 Ferrari pizza maker. It’s one of the best countertop pizza ovens in the market, also a favorite for many pizza chefs. The G3 Ferrari will not disappoint if you are looking for a pizza oven that’s hot, quick and efficient.
With this bad boy, you can say goodbye to take-away pizzas. In 3-4 minutes of baking, this machine can bring out a restaurant standard pizza, one with a crispy base and well-flavored toasty toppings. When used with the right balance of ingredients, you get to bake a pizza that tastes just as good as an Italian pizza baked with a furnace oven.
If you have a wood fired oven, it complements well with this mini cooker. For those days the weather is unfriendly, this indoor pizza cooker is the perfect alternative. The Delizia pizza oven guarantees the same super high temperatures that you would get with furnaces from the best pizzerias. Plus, it does not release unwanted smoke or unpleasant smells.
It does one pizza at a time. If you want to do a couple of pizzas – let’s say around two or three for the night, the G3 Ferrari got you. It’s practical to have this one for home use, an office, or a small B&B. You can bake pies, wraps, cakes, and chestnuts.
Compact-sized but powerful
You’ll love the compact-sized design. It does not come with the extra size and weight of a regular oven. Once you’re done doing your pizza, you can stack it away inside a cellar shelf or your kitchen cupboards. With dimensions of 35x 33.5 x 20cm and weighing 4.5kg, this unit isn’t another kitchen cookware taking space. Also, it’s big enough to hold a decent amount of food, enough for the whole family.
Thanks to the stone slab, you can bake the pizza directly on its stone. All the heat needed to bake the pizza is directed from the upper side and lower side. It has a temperature knob and a timer knob near its back where the upper heating element connects to the hinge. The timer has 5 settings – ranging from 0 to 5. The thermostat regulator has three cooking settings.
In between, the two thermostat and timer knobs, it has a red light indicator. This alerts you when your pizza oven has reached optimal temperatures.
For a delicious, charred crust, some people manipulate the potentiometer when cooking. As the stone heat ups, you raise the temperature settings to maximum. This trick allows the heating elements to remain powered-on during the bake-time, cooking the pizza to perfection.
Cooks within minutes and its super hot
The G3 gets hotter than a regular oven. Ordinary ovens will reach temperatures of around 250-300 degrees. As for this pizza oven, its refractory stone can reach optimal temperatures of 400 degrees. At optimal temperatures, it bakes pizza quickly, creating a delicious pizza with a crispy base within a few minutes.
This pizza oven bakes your pre-baked or frozen pizza in less than 5 minutes. However, cooking times can vary, depending on the crust’s thickness and the toppings used.
Bakes 10-inches sized pizza
Bake 10-inches pizza, leaving a little portion of tomato sauce and cheese. You can bake 11-inches sized pizzas but it’s best to settle for 10”. If your pizza covers the entire stone, cheese and toppings will melt on it, creating a smoky and greasy mess.
Its baking pan has a non-stick surface. Your pizza crust and cheese doesn’t stick on the cooking surface and cleaning is an easy job.
Pro's
- Bake brick-stone baked pizza.
- Has a thermostat regulator.
- Easy to use.
- Easy to clean and store.
- It has a timer.
- Affordable price.
- Compact-sized.
- Bake at high temperatures.
Con's
- Above $100 price mark.
- Smoky when oil gets to the stone.
- Needs regular maintenance.
- UK customers: have to get an 3-prong UK version adapter.
MasterChef Pizza Maker
If you’re looking for a portable pizza oven, the Masterchef pizza oven makes the list. The design is exquisite and it’s a versatile cooker as it can bake even exotic dishes. Plus, it gets the job done in minutes. You’re guaranteed to get a pizzeria-style pizza, crispy and juicy, all for less than $100.
Bake a delicious pizza in 5 minutes
It’s not the hottest pizza oven but it outshines conventional electric ovens. This model can reach optimal temperatures of 400F – decent temperatures to bake your pizza in minutes. If not vigilant, you could end up with a scorched pizza.
It needs to be preheated but the oven takes about 5-6 minutes to heat up. Once it does, the heat indicator will go off, signalling you to insert your pizza dough to start baking.
Compact, exquisite design
The Masterchef pizza maker is a compact-sized little machine. Almost the size of a mini-oven, the pizza doesn’t take up space in your kitchen space. It’s only 8-pounds in weight and measures 16x 16x9 inches in dimensions. It will fit well in your kitchen countertop area or in your kitchen cabinets. If you want to move it to a different area in your kitchen, its compact-size makes it easily portable.
Its frame is all metallic with glaze finish while the knobs and its handle are plastic. The frame features two components – the cooking plate and the top lid. Once you close the lid during cooking, a lot of the heat remains trapped inside the oven. This provides optimal temperatures for a rich-flavoured Sicilian style pizza.
On the sides of the lid, it has perforations that allow the excess heat to escape from the oven. With the excess heat being vented out, you’re guaranteed of a non-soggy pizza since it stays aerated as it cooks. With this design, your pizza won’t come out charred.
On the top side, it has two knobs, both of orange colours. The bigger knob is for timer settings. You can adjust the settings all the way to 30 minutes. That’s an advantage because you only need to set about 5-6 minutes for a frozen pizza to bake to perfection. The smaller knob is for regulating the temperature. It has three different settings you can experiment with.
This design is a rotating tray pizza oven. With a rotating tray, your pizza gets uniform heating as it bakes. The rotating tray turns continuously, ensuring every section of the dough is evenly heated. Also, with this design, it means you don’t have to rotate the pizza yourself when baking. The oven will take care of that. As your pizza or mini frittatas cook, you can engage in something else.
Another exciting feature about this pizza oven is that it has a viewing window on its control panel. You can monitor your dishes as they cook or bake. This viewing window comes in handy when you want to cook your pizza to perfection. A minor error in calculation – like an extra minute of cooking – can mean the difference between a burned pizza and one with a crispy crust.
Experiment with exotic dishes
The Masterchef pizza maker is a versatile oven. Apart from baking 12-inch sized plate pizzas at home, you can use it as a waffle machine, mini-pastry oven, or a Calzone-maker. With this pizza oven, you can experiment with exotic dishes like French Quiche, Quesaburger, and Conquisadilla. You could do mini frittatas, nachos, quesadillas, giant cookies, and more.
Easy-to-clean and store
It’s also easy to use, clean, & store. The best places are your kitchen cupboards and top of your kitchen counter - it doesn’t take up space.
Pro's
- Bake 12” sized pizzas.
- Non-stick cooking surface.
- It has a viewing window.
- It has a timer and temperature knob.
- It’s easy to set up and use.
- It’s time-saving.
- Affordable price.
- Produces a crispy, juicy crust.
- Versatile.
Con's
- It doesn’t get to high-temperatures like some top-rated pizza ovens.
- No control settings for temperature.
- Limited to three heat settings.
Betty Crocker BC-2958CR Pizza Maker
Bake 12” pizza
The Betty Croker pizza maker is yet another of our favourite picks. With this pizza oven you can bake full-sized pizza (12-inches) in about 11 minutes. And that’s a super fast technique compared to the time you’d have to wait for a take away pizza.
Easy and convenient to use
With some pizza ovens, it can take some time to get it right with your different pizza recipes. The BC-2958CR pizza maker is one of the simplest ovens out there. It has no ON/OFF button – rather, you plug the unit to a power source. It starts heating up right away.
On the top side, it has two light indicators, a green light and a red light. When the appliance is plugged in, the red light (Power-on indicator) goes on. The red light stays on when the unit is heating up – and it stays on until you unplug the unit. In contrast, the green light powers on when the oven hits optimal temperatures.
The Green light alternates between ON/OFF during cooking, as the unit adjusts to maintain the ideal temperatures. Despite the oven not having an ON/OFF switch, operating it is straightforward.
Simple, unique Design
The oven features a Simple, unique design. Thanks to this circular-shaped design, the pan heats up evenly, allowing the cheese to melt well on top of the baking crust. Also, toppings spread well on the baking crust.
A built-in self-regulated thermostat gives you control when baking. You can regulate the temperatures to have a golden, crispy crust.
It has a dual heating system, so the top and bottom plate allows the pizza to bake uniformly on both sides. Unlike pizza ovens that leverage a flame where you have to keep rotating the pie for it to cook evenly, the dual heating plates fitted on this model ensure the pizza bakes evenly. That means the pizza oven saves you time as you don’t have to keep rotating the pizza halfway through the procedure.
Both the bottom and upper plates are coated with the same non-stick surface. The non-stick cooking surface ensures pizza and other foods like cheese do not stick on the pizza oven. Once your pizza crust is baked, lifting it off is easy.
Fast heating
The oven heats up pretty fast, getting to maximum temperatures within 15 minutes. At optimal temperatures, you can have your golden crust pizza ready in 11 minutes on average.
Compact design
Measuring only 13.8 x 15.9 x 5 inches and weighing 0.16 ounces, this pizza oven is way smaller than an average microwave – if you stack up about three pizzas together, they measure up to almost the same size. This means it can easily fit in your cupboard or on top of the kitchen counter when not in use.
No timer
Because it does not have a timer, you have to open the lid occasionally to check your pizza. However, there is no need to rotate the pizza.
More than a pizza maker
Apart from baking flatbreads and home-made pizzas, this pizza maker is multi-purpose. You can cook a variety of foods like Quesadillas, Nachos, Giant cookies, Mini frittatas, omelettes, chocolate chip cookie, cinnamon burns, and Quiche.
Easy to clean and store
The non-stick surface makes it easy to clean your pizza oven after use. With this pizza oven, you only have to let it cool once you’re done cooking with it. Then rinse it running water and wipe off the grease – it comes off easily then. It’s also dishwasher-safe, an added advantage during cleaning. You can store it in your cupboard or atop of your kitchen counter.
Cooling takes only a few minutes, so you can clean right after without having to wait for long.
Pro's
- Low-priced.
- Easy to-use.
- Fast and energy saving.
- Easy to clean to store.
- Affordable price.
- Multi-purpose.
- Time saving.
- Bake 12” sized pizzas.
- Stylish, rigid design.
- Package comes with several recipes and meal plans.
Con's
- It does not have a timer.
- No temperature regulator.
- No ON/OFF button.
Pizzacraft PC0601 Pizzeria Pronto Pizza Oven
Another top-rated model is the Pronto Pizza oven from Pizzacraft. With this pizza oven, you can transform your kitchen into a pizzeria. It beats hands down the conventional ovens that hardly reach 400F and with up to one-hour cooking time. Apart from a delicious pizza, you can also experiment with things like Cinnamon rolls, cookies and omelet for the whole family.
Heat ups quickly
It heats up really quick, taking about 15 minutes in total. This means once it’s heated up, you can have an ultra-thin crust pizza ready within 6 minutes.
The pizza oven leverages your stovetop’s gas burner to achieve the super high temperatures of above 600F – the desirable temperatures for a hot, delicious pizza.
It’s surprisingly good for thin-crusts and thick crusts. For thick crusts, you’re expected to rotate the pie so it bakes evenly. This oven can be a challenge for a first-time user but once you learn how to bake with it, preparing meals of all sorts is smooth and fun.
Durable quality design
The pizza maker is well-constructed with a sturdy steel base. The frame is constructed using different materials, ranging from silicon, stainless steel to cordierite.
It has a unique heat-efficient design that traps and reflects heat, creating optimal conditions to bake the pizza to perfection. The Dual cordierite baking stones absorb the heat from the gas burner, evenly distributing the heat to create hot spots on the stones. A built-in thermometer monitors the oven's internal temperatures.
Perforations on the stones allow for sufficient airflow, which diffuses the heat. These same perforations act as channels for the incoming heat from the burning stovetop gas. The vented hood directs excess moisture out of the oven, allowing for a crisp crust and toasty toppings – no more soggy pizza. Also to improve the airflow, the bottom stone has a cut-out.
Should want your oven to get hotter, the sliding doors trap heat when moved into position. Also, attached to the frame is a silicon handle, which makes the oven easy to operate as it can get extremely hot. Attached on its backside is a backstop that prevents your pizza from getting all the way to the edges.
This pizza cooker is bulky compared to other top rated countertop pizza ovens. Weighing almost 15 pounds with dimensions of 14” x 7” x 17 x 14”, the unit takes up space when not in use. Unfortunately, not every kitchen cabinet will be a home to this one.
Bake 12-inches pizza
With this pizza oven, you bake 12-inches sized pizzas on its pizza stone. When placed on top the gas stove burner, the pizza cooker heats up all the way to the maximum temperatures.
You need to give it like 15 minutes for the stone to preheat. After this period, the temperatures will have gotten to 650-700F. The cooker is now ready to bake your frozen or fresh pizza dough.
The outside of the oven takes around 30 minutes to cool down while the cordierite stones can take up to an hour to cool down.
Pro's
- Reach Temps of up to 600F
- It cooks fast.
- Sturdy, unique design.
- Cooks perfect, pizzeria pizza.
- Bakes a non-soggy, crispy crust.
Con's
- Needs to have a gas burner. It does not work with an electric range oven.
- Oven turns too hot.
- It’s heavy.
- There is some learning curve to get over before you cook the perfect pizza.
Presto 03430 Pizzazz Plus Rotating Oven
The Presto Pizzazz Plus rotating oven is another top-rated countertop pizza maker. With this pizza maker, making pizzeria quality pizza is now within possible for pizza fanatics. No more takeout as you can prepare your home-made dishes they way you like it.
Fast, convenient and versatile.
When it comes to baking pizza – the Presto offers a fast, efficient way to cook pizza, appetizers, snacks, and more. It bakes your frozen or fresh pizza in minutes. A fresh pizza takes less rough 10 minutes to turn into a crispy crust. Pizza made from this pizza maker cannot compare to that of a traditional oven.
The pizza oven doesn’t get extremely hot like other pizza makers because of its open-air design. Regardless, the temperatures are hot enough to bake your pizza to have that golden crust.
Also, it’s a versatile pizza oven, allowing you to experiment with tasty dishes like French fries, egg rolls, fish fillets, nuggets and onion rings. You can use it to preheat things like chicken fingers, panzarottis, sandwiches, quesadillas, burritos and even roasting nuts. It’s an all-round pizza maker, so it won’t sit lying around in your kitchen gathering dust.
Unique, compact-sized design
The design of the pizza maker is original. At first glance, you could be curious about how this little beast bakes pizza. It features a unique open-air design with a rotating tray in between dual selectable heating elements. Dual selectable baking pan, plus a rotating plate guarantees a well-cooked pizza without having to rotate it.
Its frame is designed from superior quality materials. The baking pan is a non-stick cooking surface. No sticky cheese or pastry.
This model uses a dual selectable heating element – one at the top, and another at the bottom. With a dual baking pan, you can be sure of your pizza’s crust, plus the toppings get fully baked with no uncooked areas. Conventional ovens have this problem because they don’t provide constant heating, so your pizza can have some parts baked and others parts semi-cooked. The Presto pizza maker provides uniform heating, allowing you to bake your pizza to detail.
With this pizza maker, you can regulate the heat of either the top or lower heating device to work your pizza crust or toppings. The pizza maker has a temperature knob that allows you to adjust the temperature settings for each heating device. For toppings, you can adjust the top heating pan, such that it heats up to get a browner top while adjusting the lower heating element will give you a crispier crust. You can adjust the heating device settings, depending on the results you want.
Also, it has a timer knob setting that allows you to automatically set the cooking time for your different dishes. Once the timer tops, the appliance powers-off the heating elements, automatically.
Compact-sized and portable
You can take this mini pizza cooker anywhere as long as you’ll have access to power. It can be your small kitchen, office, or even when you travel. Weighing 7.6 pounds, it’s not that heavy. As for dimensions, it measures 16”x 15” x 10” (L x W x D).
It can easily fit in your kitchen cabinets. Your kitchen countertop area is also a favourite spot for the pizza maker as it doesn’t take up space.
Bake 7-12 inches pizza
With a baking pan that has diameter measuring 13.75 inches, you can bake small-to-medium sized pizzas with this pizza oven. The pizza can range between 7-12 inches. Also, with a depth of up to 17 inches, it can hold a substantial amount of food.
It doesn’t need preheating
Also, with this pizza, it does not need preheating. Unlike some pizza ovens that you have to wait for at least 15 minutes for it to get to Ready-to-Bake mode, you don’t need to preheat this one. Cooking starts immediately after you power it on. You only have to set the timer – the timer goes off automatically once the cooking duration set expires.
Easy to clean and store
Cleaning this pizza maker is straightforward. Its cooking surface is non-stick. Once you finish baking, simply let it cool down and then scrub the sticky particle before rinsing with water. Also, the cooking plate is detachable and dishwasher safe.
Pro's
- Stylish design.
- Fast and convenient.
- Affordable price.
- Compact and portable.
- Has a timer and thermostat knob.
- Rotating tray pizza stone design.
- No preheating required.
- Easy to clean and store.
- Energy and time saver.
- Automatic timer.
- It comes with a cooking guide.
Con's
- No viewing window.
- For indoor use only.
- No power button.
- It doesn’t become as hot as you'd like.
Final Thoughts
Barbecue nights and Sunday afternoons with the family could now become a thing. With a countertop pizza, you don’t have to go through so much trouble to treat everyone to a delicious pizza. Get yourself one of these countertop pizza ovens. As it turns out – you don’t need to spend that much on a pizza oven to make pizza nights a thing in your home. A countertop pizza maker is the way to go – they come in all sizes, price, and design. You only have to pull the trigger, and order yours.
