Best Portable Induction Cooktops

Portable induction cooktops—also called portable induction burners—are already often seen in professional settings. A pastry kitchen might use one such cooktop for melting chocolate, and these portable cooktops make it easy to set up an omelet station at a buffet. But they can be every bit as useful in a home kitchen.

Temperature range: 100° F to 460° F
Number of heat settings: 20
Timer: Yes
Time to near-boil: about 13 minutes 

The Duxtop 9600LS portable cooktop is our hands-down favorite. It was the only cooktop that excelled in all our lab tests, being among the fastest to heat, while also able to hold steady simmer and melt temperatures.

In my own kitchen, I found it intuitive and easy to use. It browned chicken breasts and quesadillas evenly and was exceptionally responsive when making a cream-based sauce. 

This Duxtop has clearly labeled buttons for boiling quickly and keeping food warm, and I love the ability to switch between maintaining a target temperature (great for cooking sous vide) and setting temperature levels using a 10-point scale (with half-point increments). Even with all these capabilities, the interface still manages to look relatively uncluttered. The cooktop itself is slim and relatively compact but feels sturdy, so you won’t worry about it cracking under the weight of a loaded Dutch oven. In short, this portable cooktop blends stellar performance and great usability in a way that none of the other options here quite match.

Temperature range: 140° F to 460° F
Number of heat settings: 15
Timer: Yes
Time to near-boil: about 13 minutes 

This Avantco reminds me of the induction cooktops I used in culinary school. It has an industrial look, with lots of stainless steel and real heft to it. It’s also the tallest portable induction cooktop we tested, which means a pan sits several inches higher than it would on a regular stove. Of all the cooktops in this group, this one feels most likely to withstand the abuses of a professional kitchen.

Performance is stellar. It heats 4 liters of room-temperature water to a near-boil in about 13 minutes, just like the two Duxtop models on this list. Like all the cooktops we tried, it simmers steadily. It isn’t as great at maintaining ultralow melting temperatures in our labs, but I still found it adequate at home for whipping up a cream sauce. Searing is stellar, too: It seemed as if the cooktop was the fastest to get hot again when I used it to cook chicken breasts. They emerged evenly browned, with minimal need to move them around in the pan. 

My favorite feature is its knob for adjusting the temperature. Unlike the digital pad found on all the other cooktops, the knob makes you feel as if you’re really taking control of your cooking. The one complaint I have—and it’s admittedly nitpicky—is that the cooktop uses a 15-point scale instead of 10, so adjusting the temperature to a medium-low or medium-high heat isn’t as intuitive.

Temperature range: 140° F to 460° F
Number of heat settings: 15
Timer: Yes
Time to near-boil: about 13 minutes 

The Duxtop 9100MC cooktop, a cheaper version of the top-performing Duxtop above, performs similarly and costs quite a bit less. The only thing you give up is a little bit of refinement in the cooktop’s controls. 

While the interface on this Duxtop is simple and intuitive, it lacks a smooth digital touchpad and dedicated buttons for boiling and keeping food warm. Instead, you must press the plastic temperature buttons several times to go between those two extremes. But in my own kitchen, I didn’t detect much difference in cooking performance. It browned evenly and effortlessly moved from high heat to a low simmer for making a pan sauce.

The cooktop delivered in our lab tests, too, though it struggled to maintain melting temperatures compared with the higher-end Duxtop. Overall, the reasonable price, great performance, and easy-to-use interface make this model our top pick for shoppers on a budget.

Temperature range: 100° F to 500° F
Number of heat settings: 45
Timer: Yes
Time to near-boil: 16 to 18 minutes 

The NuWave Flex Precision packs in lots of features despite being the least expensive option here, but I’d trade some of that functionality for a clearer interface. The controls on this cooktop reminded me of the dizzying array of buttons you might see in the cockpit of a plane. It has a small digital display and 13 buttons, some of which control multiple tasks, like Pause” and Clear.” In addition to the standard functions that let you select a numeric heat level or a specific temperature, it has buttons for low, medium-low, medium, medium-high, and high temperatures, plus a Max/Sear button. It even gives you the option of cooking by wattage output, though I can’t figure out why you’d want to. 

Once you’re over the learning curve, the performance isn’t bad. It browned well and simmered impressively, particularly in the lab, where it evenly maintained melt temperatures. However, it was a bit slower to heat. Overall, it’s a decent cooktop, but if you’re looking to save money and still want stellar results, you’re better off spending a few more dollars on the Duxtop 9100MC.

Temperature range: 100° F to 500° F (via the app and connected cookware)
Number of heat settings: 10
Timer: Yes (via the app and connected cookware)
Time to near-boil: 16 to 18 minutes 

The Hestan Cue portable cooktop is a clever product hindered by slightly sluggish performance and the requirement of add-ons to unlock its full potential. You need to buy specialized cookware directly from the company and use its app to be able to cook at a specific temperature, while other listed cooktops allow you to do so without the extra costs. Worse, most of its specialized cookware costs more than the cooktops we tested. 

To be fair, the app and cookware do let you accomplish more than what the competition allows. In addition to controlling temperatures from your phone, the app includes over 600 guided recipes. But the cooktop’s performance isn’t stellar. While it simmered steadily in the lab, like pretty much all the cooktops here, it was among the slower models, with a near-boil time of 16 to 18 minutes, and it wasn’t great at maintaining melt temperatures, either. 

In my kitchen, the cooktop worked well when searing and making sauces. My biggest complaint is the controls. When you use the cooktop without the app, you can choose the heat setting only by dragging your finger across a trackpad. The pad works just fine, but it’s small, making it much harder to zero in on the exact temperature range you need. And instead of a numeric display telling you the chosen setting, it uses a series of vertical lines, which you need to count to make sure you’ve selected the heat level you actually want. In the end, this model is both the most expensive and least functional out of the box, with performance that doesn’t leave you wanting to invest more.

Temperature range: N/A
Number of heat settings: 8 (on the large burner); 5 (on the small burner)
Timer: Yes 
Time to near-boil: more than 20 minutes 

This double-burner induction cooktop seems like a nice choice for cooking multiple items at once, but the appliance’s best attribute is also its biggest drawback. 

Because appliances with a regular plug max out around 1,800 watts, the Cuisinart is forced to share that power between two burners—leaving you with a very underpowered large burner, even if you’re not using both at once. In our lab test, it took over 20 minutes to heat water to a near-boil, while the best portable induction cooktops here did that in about 13 minutes. (The best full-sized induction ranges will do that same task in about 5 minutes.) And while low-heat simmering was great, it struggled to maintain melting temperatures. 

In my kitchen, it felt noticeably underpowered. When I added cold chicken to a frying pan, it knocked the temperature down and seemed to take much longer for the heat to climb back up. The lack of power was less evident for other tasks, like making sauces or caramelizing onions. The controls don’t allow for much precision. There are only eight heat settings for the large burner and five for the smaller burner.

This portable cooktop is also double the price of the best cooktop here. If you bought two of the Duxtop cooktops and used them (on different circuits) at the same time, you would pay the same price and get better overall performance.

In my home kitchen, I used the cooktops with the same cookware for four tasks, designed to capture how they handle different foods: low and slow heat to caramelize onions, medium heat to sauté thin-cut chicken breasts and bell peppers (cooked separately), high heat to brown quesadillas, and super-low simmering temperatures to make a delicate cream-based sauce. For the onions and peppers, I used a 12-inch stainless steel skillet, while I opted for a 10-inch anodized aluminum pan (with an induction-compatible base) for the chicken and quesadilla. For the sauce, I used a small stainless steel saucepan. I also noted how quickly each portable induction cooktop was to respond to temperature changes, and how easy and intuitive each was to use.