Club Benefits
To spare you the hardship of scrolling, the overall winner of our best bread machine is the Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus. It's a premium bread maker and gives a top-end result, with an excellent texture and crust. If you’re on a budget, but still enjoy a homemade loaf, the Hamilton Beach Artisan Dough & Bread Maker is a smart buy.
Whether you’re looking to make bread for the first time or regularly enjoy a homemade loaf but need a little extra help, investing in one of the best bread machines will ensure you can always enjoy the delights of a freshly baked loaf without stepping outside your front door. With hands-on experience baking and tasting homemade loaves, I’m confident that my best round-up of bread machines will help you decide which one’s right for you.
To determine which bread machines are the best of the batch, I’ve conducted hands-on testing along with consumer report research to pick the best of the bunch. Apart from considering power, setting options, design, capacity, and ease of use, one of the most important factors is end results, as there’s no point in investing in a bread machine if it doesn’t produce a tasty loaf.
I recommend many other great bread machines, including compact appliances and those suitable for large families who’ll appreciate extra capacity. Here are the best bread machines you can buy right now.
The quick list
Here are the best bread machines you can buy right now based on our comprehensive testing. Scroll on for our full in-depth reviews.
This Zojirushi bread maker gives an excellent performance and has the benefit of a gluten-free and sourdough setting, for bakers that want to bake more than a standard loaf, or if you have members of your household who have special dietary requirements. However, it does come in at the top end, so it best for those who want to bake more than the occasional loaf.
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The Hamilton Beach Artisan Dough & Bread Machine gives an excellent performance. It can bake a 2lb loaf, has 15 settings, including one for gluten-free bread. This bread maker also boasts an express setting if you want bread in a hurry. It's a real steal at under $100.
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This luxury bread maker has plenty of features, including 13 settings, crust color control, delay start, a fruit and nut dispenser and an interior light to enable you to check what's happening to your bake. It is on the expensive side, but if you bake regularly, it's worth the investment.
Meet our testing team
I started baking as soon as I could see over the top of my mom's kitchen countertop, and I haven't stopped since. I can't confess to being an award-winning baker, as I'm more about the taste than the look, but I've certainly spent a good deal of my time trying out new kitchen appliances and working out the pros and cons of each. While I started baking fresh bread by hand, I've now come to realize the freedom that using one of the best bread makers gives —resulting in a loaf just as impressive as one made by hand, with the benefit of giving you back time, and making it easier for you to enjoy fresh bread daily.
I tested the Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus that's reviewed in this guide. It gives a superior performs, which is why it's rated as the best overall bread maker in this guide. My advice and experience comes from five years as a home and kitchen product tester, during which time I've tested hundreds of items first hand, including a good few kitchen appliances and bread machines. Apart from Tom's Guide, my work appears in publications such as Forbes, USA Today, The Spruce, Food52, and more.
Best overall
For a picture-perfect loaf every time, you can’t beat the Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus, although it doesn’t quite beat Breville’s Custom Loaf on size, which offers an extra 0.5 lb in capacity. However, it can only make a 2lb loaf, which might be too large for some households, and with it’s large capacity comes a larger footprint.
It can be a challenge when using a breadmaker to make a neat, uniform loaf in a classic shape that gives an ample slice, but the Virtuoso Plus does just that. So, you don’t have to worry about serving up an odd-shaped vertical sandwich.
The Zojirushi bread machine gains a 4.7-star rating out of 6,882 reviews on Amazon. User's say "this machine is worth the investment", and "it's simple to use, very quiet and stable," plus, "my bread is soft and moist and perfect each time".
When tested, it produced light and fluffy bread with a wonderfully crispy crumb, and it also has a wide choice of settings to choose from. The Virtuoso Plus will cater for any dietary need — from gluten, salt and sugar-free to vegan loaves. It even has a setting for a sourdough starter, and if you like to experiment, you can create custom settings to create your favorite recipes. This bread maker is certainly for the sophisticated baker, so if you’re looking to bake a simple loaf, you might be better off with a simpler version.
It also includes 3 crust colors, and lets you know the optimal time to add extra ingredients, such as walnuts or olives to your dough, which is very similar to the Breville Custom Loaf.
The bright LCD display is easy to program, with the baking settings printed on the front of the lid, and unlike those on other bread machines, it tells you what time your bread will be done, rather than how much time is left. That means you don’t have to do math in your head but rather see exactly when your pumpernickel will be ready to be slathered with butter. It also has a handy viewing window on top of the appliance so that you can take a sneaky peek at its progress.
Depending on your breadmaking needs, the Zojirushi is pricey, so if you are looking to make the occasional loaf or are new to breadmaking, you might prefer to invest in a less expensive model to start.
Read our full Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus review
Best budget
Although it’s budget friendly, the Hamilton Beach Artisan Dough & Bread Maker doesn’t skimp on settings, making it the best bread machine for budget-conscious shoppers. In addition to the typical settings including jam, cake, and gluten-free, it has some unusual ones. There’s a cycle specifically for French bread and one for artisan dough that gives dough made with a sourdough starter an extra slow cool rise before you shape it yourself into a boule. And like virtually all models, you can set it to bake overnight; if you opt to sleep in, it will keep your bread warm.
User's give this Hamilton Beach bread maker a 4.5 star rating out of 3,736 reviews at Amazon. They say "if you are a first time buyer of a bread machine, this is a very good choice", and "it produces excellent, consistent results". However, because of the small footprint, loaves can be tall.
The Hamilton Beach has some timesaving features. When you haven’t planned ahead of time, it can whip up a loaf start to finish in under 2 hours on the Express setting. And clean-up is truly a breeze as you can chuck both the pan and the paddle in the dishwasher. Overall, it's easy to see why Artisan Dough & Bread Maker is one of the best bread machines. It's also neat and will look compact if kept on your worksurface. It's worth comparing it to Cuisinart's compact bread maker, which just like the Hamilton Beach model, is also available at an affordable price.
Best luxury
If you’re looking for a beautifully designed machine with a lot of fancy features, you’ll love the Breville the Custom Loaf. It can make a loaf that’s up to 2 1/2 pounds, among the largest of any electric bread baker. Although, if you'll looking for even greater capacity, West Bends 3 lb Hi-Rise Bread maker will give you a larger loaf. It has 13 settings, including one for an extra-crusty loaf and another for gluten-free bread, making this one of the best bread machines around.
The Breville is pricey but has a lot of nice extras including some you won’t find on any other machine. There’s a dispenser that automatically adds the fruits, nuts, or chocolate chips so you can truly set and forget it, regardless of your recipe. Although be warned, if you’re making a large loaf, the extra ingredients probably won’t fit into the compartment and will need to be added manually — but you will hear an beeping sound when the ingredients need to be added.
The Breville Custom Loaf scores a 4.3 star rating out of 1,368 reviews at Amazon. Users say, "I love the preheat feature which allows for a lovely rise", and "the nut dispenser is a lovely feature". Although some say the collapsible paddle is difficult to clean.
The Breville is pricey but has a lot of nice extras including some you won’t find on any other machine. There’s a dispenser that automatically adds the fruits, nuts, or chocolate chips so you can truly set and forget it, regardless of your recipe. Although be warned, if you’re making a large loaf, the extra ingredients probably won’t fit into the compartment and will need to be added manually — but you will hear an beeping sound when the ingredients need to be added.
After it finishes kneading, the paddle folds down. That means you don’t have to extract it from your baked bread and there’s no crater in the bottom of your loaf. An interior light makes it convenient to see what’s going on inside the machine without opening the lid. It's a small feature, but it's brilliant, and will keep children entertained for hours! Like all Breville appliances, it has a plug that’s particularly easy to pull out of the socket.
Read our full Breville Custom Loaf review
Model | Capacity | No. of settings | Special features |
|---|---|---|---|
Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus | 2 lbs | 15 | Gluten-free/sourdough setting |
Hamilton Beach Artisan Dough & Bread Maker | 1, 1 ½, 2 lbs | 14 | Gluten-free setting |
Breville the Custom Loaf | 1, 1 ½, 2, 2 ½ lbs | 13 | Crust color control |
Also recommended
How we tested
Our criteria
Our guide for the best bread machines is based on extensive, consumer report research and online reviews. We rated things like power and how well each machine performed for various settings. In addition, we looked at how user-friendly and practical it was to use, design, capacity and number of extra features.
When we test the bread machines we take several factors into account. The final result — the quality of the bread produced — is the most important point. But we also look at how easy the appliance is to use, how well it mixes the dough and the capacity of the automatic dispenser to add extra ingredients, and if the machine has one, plus many more elements. The range of settings is also considered and the maximum size of loaf that can be baked. All of these factors help us determine which bread machines are best for specific categories, such as best compact or best premium bread machine.
We are currently working on reviewing every bread machine in our guide to give you the best possible information to make the best choice for you.
How to choose the right bread machine for you
Machine size: Bread machines are bigger than you think, so checking you’ve got the space for it is imperative. Check the dimensions before you buy and measure out where you plan to sit it — remember, you will need to factor for opening the lid on top and space is needed around the machine for it to vent. It’s good practice to leave some space in front too because some machines can ‘walk’ while they knead and you don’t want it to end up on the floor.
I always keep my bread maker on my countertop, as it reminds me to use it, but whether you plan to keep it on display or within a cupboard, check that it will fit in the space.
Loaf size: Don’t go straight for the biggest loaf size on the market. The bigger you go, the more space the machine will take up, so you could end up storing more than necessary. And baking too much bread is just one of the 8 bread maker mistakes you never knew you were making.
On top of this, you will likely waste a lot of bread if you can’t finish the loaves. Remember, there’s no preservatives in homemade bread, so it will expire quickly. If you want an idea for size — a one-pound loaf should provide eight slices, and an extra half pound will give you another four slices.
Baking too much bread is just one of the 8 bread maker mistakes you never knew you were making.
But also take into account how the loaf comes out, as if you opt for a compact bread machine you might find it produces a cube loaf, such as the Zojirushi Home Bakery Mini Breadmaker, or a high loaf, such as the Cuisinart Compact Automatic Bread Maker, which needs to be placed on its side to slice.
Settings and programs: The bread machines in this guide all have a mix of programs and will deliver from basic bread to sophisticated loaves, and even jam and cake. When looking for a bread machine, consider which settings you will need, such as gluten-free, express-bake, bake-only, or keep warm. You might also want a timer setting, so you can wake up to the smell of a fresh loaf. You should also be able to choose between the size of the loaf you desire and whether you want a light, medium, or dark crust.
Bread machine FAQs
When to replace your bread machines
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Warranties for bread machines vary from one to three years, though how long your machine lasts will depend on how often you use it. You may be offered an extended warranty but we don't recommend them, as the cost of lifetime repairs are likely to be less than the cost of the warranty itself.
If all of a sudden your bread is not coming out correctly, the problem may be related to the recipe, the ingredients, or even the temperature and humidity. It’s most likely not a problem with the machine itself. The owner’s manual or a reputable cookbook should be able to help you troubleshoot and achieve better results. To keep the paddle kneading properly, you should also make sure that both it and the area around it are thoroughly clean, so that baked-on gunk isn’t preventing it from moving.
An acrid smell could be caused by burnt bits in the bottom of the machine, so be sure to clean under the loaf pan after every bake. If the control panel doesn’t operate correctly, the lid doesn’t close securely, or the machine simply doesn’t operate, you need to take your machine to a professional or replace it. A repair quote of more than half the price of a new bread machine is an indication that it’s time to buy a replacement.
What kind of yeast can you use in a bread maker?
Baking a loaf of bread is about getting the yeast right, so you might wonder if you need to use a particular type of yeast when using a bread maker. Both bread machine yeast and rapid-rise yeast are designed to be used in a bread machine, and unlike active dry yeast, they work faster. However, if you use active dry yeast in your bread machine, dissolve it in water before adding it to your ingredients.
Can you make sourdough in a bread machine?
Yes, it's possible to make sourdough in a bread maker, and some bread machines have specific settings. However, it can be a tricky bread to make, and if you are used to making it by hand you may need to adapt your recipe for your machine.
The one issue is that a bread machine can't react and respond to the dough as you would, and sourdough isn't as predictable as using yeast. Your bread machine can't tell if the dough needs more time to rise, or if it's risen too much before baking. So, if your bread maker doesn't offer customizable settings, you may find it harder to achieve the result you desire with sourdough.
Is it cheaper to make home made bread?
The cost of a loaf will vary depending on the price and quality of the ingredients you use. If you are making an 'artisan' loaf, with high-quality flour and added ingredients, such as olives and nuts, you may still save more than buying the equivalent at your local deli. You'll also find that a basic white loaf will be cheaper than buying it from a quality store. However, although you can save money, it does cost you your time, even when using a bread maker.
Stuck between baking bread in an over or using a bread maker?
My decision to use a bread machine was partly due to time constraints. I enjoy homemade bread, but don’t have the space to go through all of the stages each time I want a fresh loaf. This is where a bread maker comes in, as all I need to do is weigh the ingredients and press a few buttons, then after a few hours, my loaf is ready. I still resort to using my oven when I want to make extra-special bakes, but for everyday use, I rely on my bread maker.
