Gabriella Gershenson, who wrote the 2023 update, is an editor on Wirecutter’s kitchen team and a longtime food journalist. In addition to having worked at various culinary publications, she covered cooking gear for The Wall Street Journal and is the co-author of the cookbook Love Japan.

Sarah Zorn, Winnie Yang, and Wirecutter senior editor Marguerite Preston contributed research and testing to past versions of this guide.

For this guide, we pored over scores of waffle maker reviews and interviewed experts with deep waffle-cooking experience.

Opinions on what constitutes a great waffle vary: Some people prefer them brown and crispy; others, pale and soft. Some like a thin American-style waffle, while others favor a pillowy Belgian style. We set out to find machines that could make the most broadly appealing waffles with the least amount of hassle. The following qualities separated the great machines from the rest:

• Consistency: A good waffle maker should evenly cook the batter. Waffles should brown thoroughly on both sides, without hot and cold spots, and the machine should release steam so that you don’t end up with a soggy waffle.
• Useful features: Basic models have only lights to indicate when the iron is preheated and when the waffles are done. But many people prefer beeps or other audible signals. A machine should also allow for varying levels of doneness.
• Speed: Waiting five minutes for four waffles is reasonable—but who wants to devote the same amount of time to cooking just one? Smaller-capacity machines should have faster cooking times.
• Ease of use and cleaning: A waffle maker’s instructions should be clear, and its controls should be intuitive to use. Nonstick plates should make baking and cleanup easy, and drip trays should catch overflow. The handle and controls should stay cool while the machine is in use.
• Ease of storage: Models should be lightweight but not flimsy, and ideally they should be compact enough to fit inside a cabinet or a drawer. (Though our main pick and upgrade pick are on the bulkier side, their performance in our tests made up for that.) Cord storage and locking handles are also useful, especially for models that you can store on their side.

To decide which machines to test, we checked other review sites and Amazon for top-rated waffle makers, plus recommendations from our readers.

We ruled out stovetop models, which require skill to wield successfully, as well as machines with plates for alternate uses, such as pressing sandwiches. Our experts agreed that a device dedicated to waffle making does the best job.

In 2023, we tried six models against our previous picks. Our testing has evolved since we first published this guide in 2014: In past tests, we made at least two rounds of Bisquick waffles, plus a round of yeasted waffles and a round of gluten-free waffles in the models that performed well. We found that the results of each machine varied little from batter to batter, and we have since limited our tests to Bisquick only.

For the first round, following the manufacturer’s instructions, we made waffles as you might in real life, adjusting the doneness settings to find the true medium on each machine. To us, that meant a consistent bake and a deep, golden color.

In a second round of testing, we evaluated the agility of the machines’ temperature controls, making waffles on first the lightest setting, then medium, then the darkest setting, and then going back to the lightest again to see how the machines responded.

We factored in ease of use and speed, timing how long the waffle makers took to preheat and cook. And we paid attention to whether the manufacturer-recommended amount of batter filled the plates adequately or caused overflow. Then we tasted the waffles, noting texture, color, and evenness of cooking.

We also evaluated how easy it was to take cooked waffles out of each maker, what cleanup entailed on each machine, and whether hot handles or steam posed safety issues.

In our tests, the Cuisinart Round Flip Belgian Waffle Maker WAF-F30 reliably made batch after batch of thick, golden waffles that were fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

It’s a flip model that’s as simple as it is fun to use. Though this machine lacks the bells and whistles of our super-customizable upgrade pick, we’ve concluded that for the price and performance, the Cuisinart Round Flip has most everything you need to make excellent waffles at home.

It cooks quickly. In our tests, the Round Flip took about two minutes to make a substantial, 6.5-inch-round, 1-inch-thick waffle on the medium setting. That’s hardly longer than the results from our speediest pick, the Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker, which cooked a thinner waffle in about one and a half minutes.

Our top pick preheated quickly, too, as it went from cold to medium in three minutes, just 10 seconds longer than the Cuisinart Round Classic took. Its recovery time—how long a waffle maker takes to adjust to changes in temperature settings—was also minimal at under a minute and sometimes nonexistent.

It makes thick, golden waffles. These waffles made us go ooooh—they were thick and round, with deep wells ideal for cradling syrup or our toppings of choice. The texture was fluffy inside, with just enough crunch when we cooked on medium (level 3 on the dial), and the machine consistently cooked one exemplary waffle after another.

Aside from the slightly crispier waffles made by the significantly more expensive Breville Smart Waffle Pro models, these were the most impressive waffles we tasted when it came to texture and sheer visual appeal, especially for those of us who like ’em tall and airy.

It’s agile. When we toggled the dial from level 5 (the darkest) to level 1 (the lightest), our top pick was responsive, producing a pale waffle right after cooking a deep-brown one in under a minute, with no recovery time in between. This was also true of our other picks, though we were impressed with this level of performance at the Round Flip’s price.

It’s intuitive to use. The manual’s instructions made using this model easy. First, pour the batter over the plate and spread it with a heatproof spatula. Then, close the lid, turn the handle 180 degrees, wait until the “ready” light goes on, flip it again, remove the waffle, and repeat. The machine also comes with a ¾-cup measure that doles out the right amount of batter.

Considering that this waffle maker requires the extra step of flipping, we appreciated that it wasn’t more complicated to use than our other picks.

It’s easy to clean. As with most of our picks, all it took to clean the plates after use was a swipe with a damp cloth once they had cooled. That same cloth also wiped away errant batter on the body of the machine, and we hand-washed the stainless steel drip tray, a nice feature that our other picks lack (though our upgrade pick from Breville does have an effective overflow moat).

It stays cool during cooking. The plastic lid handle was cool enough to touch after an hour of use, which was not true of all the waffle makers we tested. Even the metal surfaces didn’t get too hot, though we don’t recommend unnecessary contact; as with all waffle makers, just steer clear of the steam.

This waffle maker comes with a limited three-year warranty.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

• It offers no audible cues. Like our other Cuisinart picks, the Cuisinart Round Flip lacks sound indicators. It has only a green “ready” light that goes on when the machine is preheated or the waffle is cooked. If you prefer a beep, you might consider our upgrade pick from Breville or the Cuisinart Double Flip Belgian Waffle Maker, though both are considerably more expensive.
• It’s taller than other models. At about 8 inches high, this waffle maker is the tallest among our picks, but it can still clear an upper cabinet when fully opened on a countertop. Although it’s not as compact as our flatter budget pick, it’s small enough to be stowed in a cabinet or pantry.
• Some of the instructions are flawed. The batter cup that comes with the Cuisinart Round Flip measures ¾ cup, but as an alternative, the manual (PDF) instructs you to fill a standard measuring cup to 1 cup with batter. When we followed those instructions, however, the waffle maker was too full to close, and batter oozed out of the machine. We had better luck using a scant cup, which is closer to the ¾ cup measure that the machine comes with.

If you prefer a thin American-style waffle or want a model that’s cheaper and smaller than our other picks, get the Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker WMR-CAP2.

Its waffles taste good but aren’t the prettiest. The waffles we made with the Cuisinart Round Classic were consistently delicious and crunchy but not as perfect looking as those made by our other picks, because a hot spot on the plates rendered the center of the waffle darker than the outer edges. But that’s just an aesthetic issue, and it didn’t affect the flavor or texture.

It works fast. This speedy appliance makes a waffle in just over a minute. Although it produces only one waffle at a time, we’d say it’s still a viable option for feeding a crowd. But it’s not as convenient for that purpose as a model that can make multiple waffles at once, such as the Cuisinart 4 Slice Belgian Waffle Maker.

It’s customizable, to an extent. The Round Classic has five discrete settings for browning control. While the manual recommends the middle (3) setting, we found that somewhere between 4 and 5 produced the deep-golden color and crispy texture we were seeking.

It’s not the sturdiest, but the warranty is good. This model feels flimsy, especially compared with our other picks. The lid wiggles from side to side, and according to one staffer who has used this model for more than five years, parts start to break and show their age.

Like our other Cuisinart picks, this model comes with a three-year warranty, which is much more generous than Breville’s one-year guarantee on our upgrade pick.

How the Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker WMR-CAP2 has held up

After using our budget pick for more than five years, Wirecutter senior editor Harry Sawyers says that the Cuisinart Round Classic has proven itself to be a workhorse—and it shows. “It looks like it’s been through a war. Crusted rust on the sides. Selector switch broken down to a metal stump—it functions, if you can pinch it to move it,” says Harry. “This has been the waffle-making equivalent of driving 200,000 miles in a Geo Metro. And yet it’s still cooking.”

Supervising editor Ben Keough has had the Round Classic since 2019. His wife is the waffle specialist, and Ben reports that she finds it compact, easy to clean, and simple to use. “Just slide the lever to 3 and let ’er rip,” says Ben. “The doneness light reliably gets us perfectly cooked-through waffles. The nonstick coating is excellent, so there’s no need to pre-grease it, and once you’re done cooking, the baked-on bits slip off with a wet paper towel or kitchen cloth.”

The downsides, says Ben, are that it’s hard to get the waffles crispy (he describes the texture as “steamed”), and turning up the heat setting past 3 often results in burning.

It can also be a challenge to place the right amount of batter in the right spot to avoid overflow, or conversely, to fill the mold. During our testing, we found that pouring ½ cup of batter as recommended in the manual (PDF) caused some overflow, but a scant half cup did fine. Spreading the batter over the plates with a heatproof spatula, as instructed in the manual, helps.

Thanks to a quadrant of deep-pocketed plates, the Breville Smart Waffle Pro 4 Slice excels at producing mass quantities of fluffy, 1-inch-tall waffles. Breville also makes a more compact, two-slice Smart Waffle Pro, for fewer waffles at a slightly gentler cost.

It’s the most customizable model, and it made the crispiest waffles. An unprecedented host of options rewards you with dialed-in waffles. Not only can you fiddle with the color and texture, but this machine also gives you ideal cooking settings according to waffle type.

A knob allows you to scroll through an impressive selection of 12 different brownness levels, by far the largest range of the models we tested. They make subtle but discernible differences in shade and texture without the waffles emerging raw or burnt at either extreme. This machine managed to achieve a level of crispiness that our other picks could not.

Cooking times are tailored to waffle styles. Also fun to play with—though less obviously effective—is a dial that automates the cooking time based on the type of waffle you choose. We tested only the Belgian and classic settings, but the idea is that the machine either subtracts or adds minutes to achieve a Belgian waffle’s tender center, for instance, or to create a crispier, drier classic waffle.

And you still have opportunities to make adjustments once the waffles are cooked: Pressing the “A Bit More” button adds a little more cooking time.

It has clear readiness indicators. The Smart Waffle Pro flashes the word “heating” as it preheats, and then, when it’s ready, it beeps loudly while its LCD screen lights up orange. This is also the only waffle maker in our test group to include a timer and progress indicator that count down as your waffles cook, letting you know exactly when they’ll be ready.

It remains secure and cool during cooking. Housed in stainless steel that remains largely cool to the touch, and boasting a locking lid, the Smart Waffle Pro 4 Slice is both sturdy and safe.

But it’s also a bit of a beast. This four-slice model weighs a hefty 15.3 pounds and takes up 14.9 by 12.3 by 5.1 inches of counter space. (In contrast, our top pick, the Cuisinart Round Flip Belgian Waffle Maker, weighs 7.8 pounds and measures around 12 by 8 by 8 inches.) As long as you have room in your cabinets, you can still store it flat or on its side.

An overflow feature catches errant batter. The built-in overflow moat helps guard against batter leakage, and it’s easy to clean should that occur.

Waffles can get stuck. As adept as the Breville models were at making waffles in our tests, we often had to pry them out once they were cooked. The nonstick coating didn’t seem to be at fault; instead, the likely culprit was the shape of the grids, which are deeper on the bottom plate than the top. As a result, when you open the machine, you don’t have much waffle sticking up above the lip of the grid, so you have nothing to get a grip on. In our tests, this resulted in a few misshapen waffles and crumbs littering the grids due to all the futzing we did to dig the waffles out.

According to a Breville representative, the company doesn’t recommend applying any type of oil, butter, or fat directly to the plates, advice that we heeded during testing.

At this price, though, we expected the Breville waffle makers to turn out waffles with little to no resistance, as we experienced with our less expensive picks.

Breville covers the Smart Waffle Pro 4 Slice with a one-year limited warranty—a not especially generous policy for such a costly machine.

How the Breville Smart Waffle Pro 4 Slice has held up

Senior staff writer Kaitlyn Wells had some buyer’s remorse after purchasing the Breville Smart Waffle Pro, which she found too cumbersome for her small New York City kitchen.

“I really loved my old cheapo waffle maker that flips, but the coating came off when we mistakenly used nonstick spray on it—whoopsie!” she said. “The Breville is good. It’s just way too bulky and hard to clean.”

Kaitlyn said that while she appreciates how quickly the Breville model can make loads of waffles, she finds it tough to clean since the plates don’t come off. (None of our current picks have removable plates.)

Since the Smart Waffle Pro is too big for her limited storage and counter space, she’s reluctant to take it out and use it. She concedes that it could be a better choice if she had a large family and a more spacious kitchen.

For a household looking to make stacks of golden waffles quickly and on a budget, the Cuisinart 4 Slice Belgian Waffle Maker WAF-150 is a solid choice. It doesn’t make the crispiest waffles, nor ones as airy as those made by our main pick and upgrade pick. But this machine is capable of banging out four satisfying Belgian-style waffles in one go at a reasonable price and speed.

It cooks quickly. It takes about four minutes to cook a quartet of square, inch-thick Belgian waffles on the medium setting. If you do the math, that’s less time per waffle than with our fastest pick, the Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker. As with our other Cuisinart picks, these waffles practically slide out of the machine once cooked, thanks to the nonstick plates.

It makes good waffles (on medium). Most of the waffle makers we tested had hot spots, and this model was no exception. Even its well-browned waffles tended to be paler around the edges and darker toward the middle. (Spreading the batter evenly over the plates helps achieve a more uniform result.) That said, its waffles were still good—deep golden in color when cooked at level 3 or 4, with a custardy inside and a campfire toastiness on the exterior. The texture could have been crispier, but we weren’t mad at the waffles this machine made.

When we tested the 4 Slice Belgian model on the lowest and highest settings, respectively, the two extremes came out shriveled and pale or borderline overcooked. This machine did its best work at a medium level.

The plastic parts stay cool-ish, but it’s steamy. After a long cooking session, the plastic handle and the latch were warm yet still felt safe to touch. But the steam coming out of this machine was more aggressive than steam from any of our other picks—we noticed some sputtering and dripping condensation—which made us a bit skittish.

It doesn’t beep. Like our other Cuisinart picks, the 4 Slice Belgian model lacks audible cues. You have to stick around until the light changes from red to green to know when the waffles are ready.

It’s easy enough to store. Though this machine is on the larger side, it’s fairly streamlined. A locking lid and a cord that wraps under the base allow you to store this model upright or flat.

This waffle maker comes with a limited three-year warranty.

If you want a tiny, low-cost option for mini waffles: The Dash Mini Waffle Maker is a no-frills appliance that cooks reliably golden 4-inch waffles, comes in a range of colors, and costs around $10. Unlike the other models we tested, the Dash machine has no sounds or dials, or even an on/off switch. (This waffle maker does offer an indicator light, but it’s almost too dim to see.) Even so, we were impressed with the crispy little waffles that it made.

With this appliance, you’re cooking by feel, so you need to be comfortable with that. Though the company recommends cooking each waffle for four to five minutes, we found that the optimal time was around two and a half minutes for golden-outside, tender-inside results using a scant ¼ cup of batter (the recommended ¼ cup caused overflow).

The Dash Mini Waffle Maker is great if you’re cooking for one, sticking to a budget, or working with limited space—it’s about the size of a hair crimper and can reside in a drawer.

If you want two Belgian waffles at a time: The Cuisinart Double Flip Belgian Waffle Maker WAF-F40, the double version of our top pick, makes comparably thick, golden waffles. It also costs twice as much and takes about twice as long to cook, but since it makes twice the number of waffles, the timing is kind of a wash.

Unlike the single-flip model, which has only lights to indicate doneness, the double-flip beeps both when the machine is preheated and when the waffles are ready. But we had to get through a batch to figure out the significance of the various sounds and lights.

This model also occupies more vertical space than our top pick. When fully open on a countertop, it doesn’t clear an upper cabinet, whereas the single-flip version does; this could be a nonissue if you have a kitchen island to keep it on. But if you have a large group to feed, prefer audible cues, and are okay with this model’s price and bulk, it could be a good choice.

If you like thin, heart-shaped waffles: The Chef’sChoice WafflePro Taste/Texture Select Five-of-Hearts Model 840 is excellent for households that enjoy heart-shaped waffles (aka Norwegian-style waffles, or hjertevafler). The settings allow you to customize your preferred texture and brownness levels, whether you favor thin and crispy or moist and fluffy. The compact machine has a locking lid, stores vertically or horizontally, and is easy to clean. Besides the heart-shaped plates, it looks almost identical to our previous top pick, the similarly named Chef’sChoice WafflePro 840, which was discontinued, and in our tests it made waffles that were equally good.

Keep these practices in mind when using a waffle maker:

Oil before cooking, unless the manual specifies otherwise. Most manuals recommend oiling the plates of your waffle maker before the first use, which you can do with a paper towel or a pastry brush. (You may want to discard the first waffle, which can absorb some unpleasant oiliness.) After that, you shouldn’t need to oil the plates again—though our experts generally do.

Steer clear of cooking spray. Even though cooking spray is supposed to be nonstick, it builds up and makes a nonstick surface sticky over time, an issue that you don’t have with regular oil.

Avoid metal utensils. Metal can scratch the nonstick coating off a waffle maker plate, creating a sticky spot. “For getting the waffles out,” said chef Matt Maichel, “a wooden chopstick is good because you can get it under there.”

We also found that bamboo or wooden chopsticks were useful for dislodging burned bits during our testing, while pastry brushes were good at sweeping them out. Tongs with silicone or nylon heads and wooden or bamboo spatulas also worked well for removing waffles safely.

This is not a comprehensive list of everything we tested for previous iterations of this guide; we’re including just the models that are still available.

The Krups GQ502 4 Slice Belgian Waffle Maker, a previous budget pick, took twice as long to cook waffles to a deep golden brown as the Cuisinart 4-Slice Belgian Waffle Maker. It also got hot and steamy during extended use, and it has an inconveniently short cord. Though the removable plates are easy to clean, so are the plates on machines that lack that feature.

The pricey four-slice All-Clad Gourmet Stainless Steel Belgian Waffle Maker with Removable Plates made some of the crispiest waffles of the bunch, but it cooked slowly and unevenly, and its waffles were difficult to pry out when done. It also got noticeably hotter than other models. While the removable plates were easy to clean, they rattled in the machine in a way that those on the cheaper Krups model didn’t. The brand’s two-square waffle maker also fell short, as it had few special features and a flimsy browning dial that we found difficult to regulate.

Carbon’s Golden Malted Gourmet Belgian Waffle Maker looks and functions a lot like our budget pick, but it typically costs more than twice as much.

The Hamilton Beach Belgian Style Waffle Maker 26009 was a previous budget pick and a decent choice for thick Belgian waffles. But it lacked the consistency and speed of the Cuisinart Round Classic Waffle Maker, and it was the only machine we burned ourselves on—the sole cool surface was on the small locking lid, which would often catch when we tried to open it.

We named the Chef’sChoice Classic WafflePro 852 a runner-up in previous guides for its waffles’ consistency and crunch, but we found that they had a tendency to burn when the dial was on the highest setting.

The Cuisinart 4 Slice Belgian Waffle Maker Round WAF-200 looked and felt high quality, but it cooked waffles unevenly, and the same batter that produced golden waffles in other models turned mealy in this one.

Although the Presto FlipSide Belgian Waffle Maker 03510 is well reviewed on Amazon, in our tests it cooked waffles unevenly and so quickly that they started to burn. It occupies a lot of counter space when in use, too. We did like the timer, though.

Black+Decker’s Traditional Belgian Style Waffle Maker WMB500 is a little too simple, lacking any browning control, and reviewers complain about how quickly it breaks.

The Hamilton Beach Belgian Style Waffle Maker 26020 has okay ratings, but reviewers indicate that it has steam problems and lacks an indicator light, so you need to monitor the machine at all times.

We eliminated the Oster Belgian Waffle Maker CKSTWF2000 because of complaints from Amazon reviewers concerning poor construction and an inaccurate indicator light.

The Cuisinart Vertical Waffle Maker WAF-V100 seems clever at first: It stands upright, and you pour batter into a spout at the top. But Amazon customers complain that the spout clogs easily, and that it’s too small to allow add-ins such as blueberries or chocolate chips.

This article was edited by Marguerite Preston and Marilyn Ong.