We are remodeling our kitchen, as our standard gas oven cooktop isn’t big enough for us. (Our cabinets are worn out too).

We thought we wanted to go gas range Thermador and a wall microwave somewhere in our kitchen design. We had about $15k allocated for our range and microwave and hood.

Then we decided to look at Induction. We have room in our electrical panel and we have a single story ranch so wiring is easy and our house was wired for 220 to the Kitchen and garage, both unused.

Which lead me down the path of speed ovens as we would be getting a wall oven.

We lived in the Netherlands and used our countertop microwave/convection oven daily. Cooked bread (par baked) in it each morning for the kids to take to school. (Hot fresh baguettes wrapped in a towel).

Our oven there was the lowest of low quality, as it was a rental house, but that countertop convection oven was a dream, and made it all work for our family.

Here in the States, we often cook double or triple meals and vacuum seal our leftovers. So I do a lot of dumping leftovers into the sou vide to warm up.

I even freeze meals like Shepards pie and chicken pot pie directly in their cast iron, metal, or glass baking dish.

We cook almost everything from scratch, but am also reheating a lot of leftovers and kids are often microwaving pizza rolls and spring rolls to get them soft then finishing them off in the toaster oven. Our old microwave before it broke had the keep warm setting and the proof setting, both of which I used weekly.

We didn’t update our old range when we moved in to our current house even though it was 20 years old, because the front burner is 18,000btu, and the back is 5,000. It has a great convection oven, and a proof setting (I work with yeast 1-2x a week). Couldn’t find a better, in terms of BTU range at that size, so it didn’t seem worth it. But, not being able to boil a stock pot and simmer pasta sauce and cook up veggies at the same time was frustrating.

For now, until we remodel, I got a countertop induction hot plate. I like it so far.

So with our budget, we would like:

1. an induction range that can fit 3 decent sized pots

2. a new range hood

3. a microwave that can proof (and using it as a second convection oven is a bonus). Drawer microwave seems annoying.

4. a convection oven, That can fit a half sized cookie sheet, or a roasting pan is fine, maybe with steam?

We use our smoker for prime rib or turkeys, so we don’t need a giant oven.

My husband doesn’t use ovens much, as he does stovetop, instant pot, sou vide, grilling, and smoking. He mostly uses it to roast vegetables.

I do all of the above plus yeast rolls, bread dough, pizza dough, cookies, pies, and casseroles. And reheating casseroles.

Basically, I miss having the microwave/convection oven and reheating leftovers from frozen the speed oven seems ideal, but the price point is high and reading your comments, a lot of you seem to think it’s too many buttons to dig through to use the microwave functions? It will primarily be a microwave.

We soften butter, warm up leftovers using sensor reheat, we used to proof dough (before that microwave that could do it broke), we use the defrost settings once a week or so even though they suck.

We use our toaster oven and microwave 3-4x a day. We use our oven once a week or so.

We don’t use our oven or our stovetop in the summer as it heats up the house too much. We use our smoker in the summer for even making rolls.

Ideally, our budget for appliances is $10k but we can cut other parts of our remodel back to get $15k. We have a great dishwasher and fridge, and a tiny inexpensive but good infrared toaster oven.

Are the speed ovens annoying when used primarily as a microwave? We have never had two ovens and just work around it at Christmas.

Would a plain microwave and a steam oven be better for our needs and budget?