Of all the rooms in your home, the kitchen and laundry room probably consume the most energy. Let’s face it, a lot of electricity is used in those two rooms. The first step to making these rooms more energy efficient is to purchase Energy Star appliances and buy only what you really need.

An often overlooked way to save energy in the kitchen is to use a smaller oven. These are often called toaster ovens, but that’s a bit of a misleading name. Larger professional toaster ovens do much more than toast bread and can save up to 50% on energy costs each time you use them instead of a conventional oven.

To get the most out of one of these smaller ovens, you want to make sure you get one that is large and powerful enough to replace your conventional oven most of the time. Look for a high power and an oven that is large enough to cook a frozen pizza.

Some of the other features that are important to have in a toaster oven are a broiler and a quality bake function.

You won’t save energy if you don’t use the oven, so make sure you get one that’s functional and attractive enough that you’ll enjoy using it. One of the smaller features that goes a long way towards this is a crumb tray that is deep and easily accessible for cleaning. I’m not sure why, but many of these types of ovens are built with crumb trays that are very hard to reach and then get dirty very quickly.

So when you’re looking to save money on your kitchen electric bill and want to make your kitchen more efficient, consider a countertop toaster oven along with other energy efficient appliances.