Choosing the best oven for your kitchen can feel daunting. If you love to cook at home you’ll be using it daily and relying on it to not only cook your evening meals, but possibly even to impress friends and family with your creations. From roast dinners to pies and even baking up special treats – whether it’s an electric oven or gas oven, it needs to be able to handle anything.
Just like the best microwave, daily energy efficiency is important to consider, as is the type of fuel you need, whether that’s electric, gas or even dual fuel. The size of the oven is vital too. If you often cook multiple dishes at the same time you may want to choose a double oven, while if you are just cooking for yourself a single oven could serve you just fine.
With prices ranging from just under £200 to more than £2,000 and brands including Hotpoint, Neff, Samsung, Indesit and Stoves, the choices out there can feel overwhelming. New ovens also now come with a myriad of extra features, such as pyrolytic cleaning systems, pre-set cooking programmes, built-in microwaves and even air fryers.
We asked an oven expert to recommend the best ovens. You can read our picks below, but if you’re in a hurry here’s a quick look at the top five.
What are the best ovens in 2024? At a glance
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What are the different types of ovens?
“When you’re looking for a new oven there are three main types to choose from – conventional, convection (fan-assisted) and combination, which give you the option of both,” explains Jay Lockton, built-in cooking expert at AO. “In simple terms, for most households, combination ovens often offer the best value for money since you can choose to have the fan-assisted cooking option, or the conventional (non-fan) heating option to provide the greatest cooking versatility.”
Simply put, convection or fan-assisted ovens use fans to evenly circulate hot air inside the oven to ensure food cooks evenly, whilst conventional ovens simply heat the air inside the oven cavity.
How we choose the best ovens
To help you find the right oven, I asked the independent advice of an experienced built-in cooking expert at AO, Jay Lockton. He advised me on the best ovens based on size, capacity, energy rating and heating ability (whether it is fan assisted or conventional) and temperature regulation.
I also considered any added features like self-cleaning functions and pre-programmed settings, ease of use and smart features like Wi-Fi connectivity. Design was an important factor too: your oven is a key part of your kitchen layout, so it needs to look good and perform well.
Best ovens
1. AEG 6000 SurroundCook Clean enamel Oven
£449.99, AEG
Best oven overall, 10/10
We like: you can grill and oven cook at the same time
We don’t like: there’s no auto-cleaning function