What is a speed oven?
A speed oven – also known as a rapid oven or turbo oven – is designed to cook or reheat food significantly faster than a conventional oven. This is typically achieved by combining microwaves with very powerful hot air circulation.
Microwaves quickly raise the internal temperature of the food, while the hot air ensures color, crispness, and a more oven-baked surface. It is precisely this combination that makes a professional speed oven interesting: you get the speed of a microwave oven, but a result that is much closer to what you expect from a conventional oven.
What can you cook in a speed oven?
Speed ovens are especially used for products that need to be prepared or finished to order. This can include:
- Toast, paninis, and hot sandwiches
- Pizza and pizza slices
- Burritos, wraps, and quesadillas
- French fries, potato wedges, and other snacks
- Breaded products
- Pastries and warm snacks
- Ready meals and plated dishes
The main advantage is particularly evident during peak hours. Instead of having a larger oven running and waiting several minutes for one order, staff can start a saved program and have the dish ready shortly after.
For example, UNOX states cooking times as low as around 60 seconds for certain products in the SPEED.Compact ECO. The specific time, of course, depends on the product, quantity, starting temperature, and desired result.
Speed oven or microwave oven?
The two machines do not completely solve the same task. A microwave oven is very good at heating food quickly, but it usually does not provide the crispy or toasted surface desired on, for example, a panini, pizza, or a breaded product.
A speed oven also uses microwaves, but combines them with hot air. Therefore, it can both heat the product internally and bake or toast the surface.
This is one of the reasons why speed ovens are often placed directly behind the counter in cafes, petrol stations, takeaway places, and other locations where an employee needs to be able to prepare a consistent product quickly and without a lot of kitchen work.
When does a speed oven make sense?
A speed oven is particularly interesting if a large part of your sales consists of single portions made to order. Here, it is not necessarily about being able to produce large quantities of food at once, but about getting individual orders through the kitchen quickly.
If, on the other hand, you need to prepare many GN trays of food simultaneously, a regular combi oven will often be a better starting point.
It is therefore worth looking at your workflow rather than just the size of the oven. A cafe selling 150 hot sandwiches throughout the day may have completely different needs than a kitchen that needs to produce 150 portions of lunch at once.
UNOX SPEED.Compact – for fast serving in a small space
The UNOX SPEED.Compact ECO is the most obvious model for cafes, kiosks, takeaways, petrol stations, and smaller QSR concepts where primarily one order at a time needs to be prepared.
The oven is only 42.4 cm wide and runs on 230 V. It has built-in catalysts that filter smoke and odor, and UNOX states that the model can be used without a traditional extractor hood. This makes it interesting in places where it is not possible to install a large extraction system.
Programs can be saved on the oven's touchscreen, so the employee can practically select the product and start the program. This also makes it suitable for businesses with many different employees, where the result should ideally be the same, regardless of who is working.
Cleaning is manual, but the oven guides the employee through the process on the screen. There is also a QUICK.Rinse hand shower available as an accessory.
UNOX SPEED-X – when the speed oven also needs to be a combi oven
The SPEED-X is a different type of machine. It combines the functions of a professional combi oven with accelerated cooking using microwaves.
In standard combi mode, the SPEED-X can be used with up to 5 pcs. GN 2/3 with 70 mm spacing or 10 pcs. GN 2/3 with 35 mm spacing. In the special speed mode, a SPEED.Plate is used, where the oven can handle up to four rapid cooking processes simultaneously.
The big difference is therefore that the SPEED-X is not only intended for toast, snacks, and reheating. It can also be used as a real combi oven with hot air and steam for meat, fish, vegetables, and other raw ingredients.
At the same time, the SPEED-X has an automatic washing system. This is a significant advantage if the oven is used for fatty or raw products, where daily cleaning would otherwise quickly become a major task. UNOX itself describes the SPEED-X as a combination of a combi oven and a speed oven with automatic washing.
Which speed oven should you choose?
It primarily depends on what needs to go through the oven.
If you mainly need to make sandwiches, toast, pizza, snacks, or quickly heat ready-made portioned meals, a compact speed oven like the SPEED.Compact will often be the natural choice.
If the oven also needs to function as a regular production oven, cook raw ingredients with steam, and handle multiple GN trays, you should instead look towards the SPEED-X or a traditional combi oven.
The most important thing is to dimension according to the busiest periods. Please tell us what you serve, how many portions you typically make per hour, and whether the speed oven should be your primary oven or a supplement. Then we can quickly point you towards the right solution.
Test the speed oven with your own food
Cooking times on a product page only tell part of the story. Bread type, filling, portion size, and starting temperature can significantly change the result.
Therefore, it makes good sense to test a speed oven with the products you actually want to sell. At Cosina, we can help you try out your own dishes and find the programs and cooking times that work in practice.
