Yes, if your oven is a normal UK size and you’re feeding more than four. The turkey takes up most of the oven for hours, and then everything else needs to go in at once in the last hour. The roast potatoes want a high heat, the pigs in blankets want a tray of their own, and the stuffing and the parsnips somehow also need a shelf. Something always ends up done too early and sitting under foil.
A worktop mini oven sorts that out. It won’t cook the bird, but it can take two of the side dishes completely off the main oven’s hands, and that’s usually all the space you were short of.
What the Russell Hobbs 26680 does
The Russell Hobbs 20L 5-in-1 Mini Oven is a 20 litre oven with a convection fan, which matters. A lot of the cheaper mini ovens just have top and bottom elements, and they cook unevenly, with burnt edges near the elements and pale bits in the middle. A fan moves the heat around, so a tray of pigs in blankets browns all over rather than in stripes.
It has five settings: air fry, bake, grill, toast and keep warm. The temperature dial runs from 85°C up to 220°C. You get a baking pan, a rack and a frying basket for the air fry setting, plus a timer. Russell Hobbs says it’ll fit a 30cm pizza, six slices of toast or a whole chicken.
The keep warm setting is the one people overlook for Christmas. Once the Yorkshires or the stuffing balls are done, you can park them in there at a low heat while the turkey rests, rather than juggling plates on top of the hob. It’s sold and shipped by Amazon too, which is handy if you’re ordering close to the day.
What to check first
Worktop space. It’s 45.1cm wide, 36.5cm deep and 27.8cm tall, and it needs a gap around it because the outside gets hot. On a cramped worktop that’s a real chunk of space, so measure the spot before you order.
The socket. At 1500W it’s fine on a normal socket, but don’t run it off the same extension lead as the kettle and the slow cooker on Christmas morning.
220°C is the ceiling. That’s enough for most sides, but crispy roast potatoes really like it hotter, so I’d keep those in the main oven once the turkey comes out. My notes on the roasting tin that makes the biggest difference still apply.
It’s 6.13kg. That’s not something you’ll want to lift in and out of a cupboard every week. If it’ll only ever come out in December, think about where it lives the rest of the year.
Is it worth it for the rest of the year?
One day a year isn’t much of a reason on its own. In practice, a mini oven gets used for the small stuff that doesn’t justify heating a full-sized oven: a couple of jacket potatoes, a frozen pizza, fish fingers for the kids, or reheating last night’s leftovers so they come out crisp rather than soggy from the microwave. If you’re cooking for one or two most nights, it may end up getting used more than the big oven.
If you already own a decent air fryer, though, you’ve covered most of that, and a buffet server might be the cheaper fix for keeping things hot on the day. If you don’t, a fan mini oven like this one does both jobs.
