My family has made so many pizza related memories over the years! It’s something that I wish everyone can say. I’m thankful to brands like Ooni and Gozney, and to pizza chefs like Vito Iacopelli, that have made authentic pizza making so available to us normal people.
I used to only write about outdoor pizza ovens because they are the biggest trend right now. But I’ve come to realize that some people just don’t have a back yard or have undesirable outdoor cooking environments.
For these people, and those that just prefer electric, I’ve created this indoor pizza oven roundup.
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Do you want fresh, authentic pizza without leaving your kitchen? If so, then you may want to invest in an indoor pizza oven.
With an indoor pizza oven, you can create the perfect pizza with your favorite toppings and a crunchy, authentic crust. Shopping for an indoor pizza oven can be confusing as you navigate all your choices. Should you choose an electric pizza oven? A gas pizza oven? Out of all the choices out there, what’s the best indoor pizza ovens to use?
This guide aims to help you find out! Let’s explore what makes an indoor pizza maker so great, and our list of the best ones you can buy.
How Was the Indoor Pizza Oven Born?
The secret to a great-tasting pizza is finding a pizza oven that can get extremely hot, and distribute that heat evenly. It’s a very delicate art to get a perfect pizza. Whether you’re working with electric pizza ovens, or an outdoor oven for wood fired pizza, you need to learn how to work with a pizza oven’s intense heat.
A pizza oven is designed to cook pizza quickly, sometimes as fast as a single minute. They reach temperatures that go much higher than a typical conventional oven. A conventional oven won’t deliver the same crispy crust and toppings that a pizza oven can.
Many home cooks want to achieve perfect, home cooked pizza, but only have a conventional oven in their kitchen. Thus, the small indoor pizza oven was born. With these devices, a home cook can make a countertop pizza that tastes like one that came from commercial pizza ovens.
How Do Indoor Pizza Ovens Work?
Most indoor pizza ovens are small, and will conveniently fit on a countertop. These devices use convection heating to climb up to cooking temperature fast and begin cooking pizza at high speed. These ovens can be powered in a number of ways, but the most common heat sources are electricity or propane gas.
A benefit to a countertop pizza oven is its versatility. Along with cooking pizza, they can make pastries, or cook things like chicken nuggets, quesadillas, and appetizers you’d heat in a regular oven. If you’ve been looking for a new cooking tool, countertop pizza ovens can accomplish much more than you’d think.
Why Invest in an Indoor Pizza Oven?
What is the appeal of an indoor pizza oven? And what makes it a must-have for homeowners who want to make their own pizza?
Easy to Maintain and Use
An indoor pizza oven is much easier to use, especially when compared to outdoor pizza ovens.
Their castings are comprised of steel or aluminum making them resistant to corrosion, durable, and easy to clean. Inside, you’ll often find non-stick surfaces or a baking stone. Baking stones are more ideal over a non-stick surface, as they will heat up and retain heat quicker. It will also provide a more even heating surface for your pizza.
A non-stick surface may provide for an easier clean-up and food release. However, you need to watch the quality of the surface. Some surfaces will peel and leave behind toxic remnants in your food. Furthermore, it will cause your pizza to stick to the surface.
Smaller Surfaces but Quick Cook Times
An indoor pizza oven is usually small in size, with a 12” cooking surface. This smaller size is great for making smaller, personal pizzas, and fast. Due to their small size, an indoor pizza oven can cook a homemade pizza in no time.
The small size may be a bad thing for someone looking to cook larger pizzas, or feed a crowd. However, due to their efficiency, an indoor pizza maker can still get the job done! With a good heating element near the cooking surface to maintain a consistent temperature, you can cook pizzas one after the other with little time in between.
Great Features
There are a variety of extra features available on some indoor pizza oven models. A lot of the best indoor pizza oven models will be small and compact with removable parts for easy storage and transport. Other features can also include digital controls, automatic shutoffs, built-in thermometers, a dedicated pizza drawer, and cooling features that make cooking more enjoyable.
Easy to Store
As we touched on above, many models will easily fit on your countertop. This can make for easy storage between uses, or easy storage on your countertop without taking up too much space. Indoor pizza ovens can often double as portable pizza ovens, that you can take with you camping, to parties, tailgating, or other places outside the home.
It’s important to find a safe space for your pizza oven if you plan to store it on your counter. Due to their high temperatures, the heat they give off can warp your cupboards, so you need to watch where you use them. Cabinets that are too low will additionally affect the amount of clearance you have while opening the lid.
The Heat Issue
Only the higher end models will cook much hotter than a conventional oven, or as hot as pizza ovens that you’d find in a restaurant.
For a pizza that has an authentic brick oven taste, you need a machine that can reach over 750 degrees F. Indoor pizza ovens will typically only reach a temperature at, or below, 500 degrees F.
These lower temperature ovens will cook frozen pizza well, and are great at cooking pizzas faster than a conventional oven.
However, if you are looking for professional results, you’re going to need to spend a little more money on an oven that will get over that 750 degree F mark.
The Best Indoor Pizza Ovens
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#1 PRODUCT
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Check Price on Ooni
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Check Price on Breville
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Check Price on Amazon.com
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Best Overall: Ooni Volt 12
I have spent a lot of time teaching friends and family how to cook. I’ve also answered a lot of questions for friends and family that get their own pizza oven and struggle getting to know it on their own – much like I did when I started years back.
I appreciate that the Ooni Volt has two features that help beginners overcome three of the most common issues that new pizza chefs have:
- The outside of the crust burns, while…
- The bottom of the crust is under-cooked, and at the same time…
- The middle of the pizza is cold
But what did Ooni do that was so special?
Like any other pizza oven, the Ooni Volt has two electric heaters, but they go one step above allowing you to manage them independently – they give you a manage dial that has you turn the knob towards the top burner it will simultaneously lower the temperature of the bottom burner – and vice-versa.
How is this useful? If you have a pizza with too much toppings or the dough is thicker, you want to swing more heat to the top burner so that it will take longer for the bottom to cook so you can dedicate more time to the top to cook through.
The second feature that helps is the “Booster” feature that will temporarily drive up heat on the bottom burner to prime the stone to be ready to cook between pizzas.
The Ooni Volt is also the only electric pizza oven on the list to be rated for both indoor and outdoor use – so take it anywhere you’ve got power.
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#1 PRODUCT
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Check Price on Ooni
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Best Runner Up: Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo Pizza Oven
The Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo pizza oven is a beautiful appliance. The curved stainless-steel outer shell is very attractive.
But the outside is not the best part of the Breville Pizzaiolo. It has a wood-fired setting that allows the temperature to get up to 750 degrees. At that heat you can cook a pizza very similar to an outdoor oven. It takes as little as 2 minutes from launch to finish.
The Breville is also very versatile for cooking different styles of pizzas. With a turn of the know you can set your oven to cook New York style, pan pizza, or thin crust pizza.
The heating elements in the Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo produce conductive, radiant and convective heat. This means you can have a perfectly cooked pizza as well as have it look perfect too.
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Check Price on Breville
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Most Popular Budget Option: Wisco Industries 421 Pizza Oven
The Wisco 421 electric pizza oven is one of the most popular indoor pizza ovens. Simple, yet it does an excellent job making pizzas. It has a quick one-touch button to go to 450°F in ten minutes and an adjustable thermostat that reaches 500°F. It is very convenient with a removable clean-out tray.
It is durable with its calrod heating elements plus it is comprised of stainless steel.
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Check Price on Amazon.com
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Best Alternative: Kalorik Oven With 9 Accessories
While this isn’t a dedicated pizza oven, it will offer a diversity of features at a good price. Turbo MAXX Technology will cook your food in a fraction of the time and saves up to 77% of energy costs. It replaces ten kitchen appliances as you will be able to use it as an air fryer, grill, toaster, oven, rotisserie, broiler, dehydrator, roaster, warmer, and pizza oven.
With 21 smart pre-sets, you can cook at the touch of a button. It also allows for larger proportions with its 26-quart capacity. In terms of pizza, it will allow you to cook a 12” pizza.
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Check Price on Amazon.com
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Best Budget: Kalorik Hot Stone Pizza Oven
If you want something with a smaller footprint and can easily be stored, then this pizza maker will be ideal. It is perfect for fresh, pre-made, or frozen pizzas. This pizza oven comes with a removable oven stone so that your pizza is evenly cooked plus has lower and upper heating elements.
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Check Price on Amazon.com
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As someone from Long Island, New York, Thomas knows what it takes to make a good pizza. He understands that it’s a combination of high-quality ingredients, well-rounded pizza ovens, and a little bit of love. From the dough of a Neapolitan-style pizza to the wood that powers a wood-fired pizza oven, he has you covered. Thomas’ love of pizza is what got him here and he hopes that you’ll enjoy pizza as much as he does soon.
