The Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus is the bread machine serious home bakers keep landing on, and once you understand three features it's obvious why. It's expensive — the priciest machine we recommend — but the price buys genuine, visible improvements in the loaf, not just a nicer badge.
The first is dual heaters. Most bread machines have a single heating element in the base, which leaves the top of the loaf pale. The Virtuoso Plus adds a heater in the lid, so it browns the whole loaf evenly — the single clearest quality difference in the category. The second is the horizontal two-paddle pan: it bakes a standard rectangular loaf that slices for sandwiches, instead of the tall, square tower a vertical single-paddle machine produces. The third is three programmable custom courses, which let you set your own knead, rise and bake times and dial in a recipe the preset cycles can't — the difference between a machine you out-grow and one you keep for years.
The honest downsides are size and price. It has a large footprint and it's heavy, so it needs a permanent home on the counter, and it costs well more than a capable beginner machine. If you only want the occasional loaf and don't care about even crust or loaf shape, a sub-$150 machine will feed you perfectly well — see our beginner picks. But if you bake bread often and want the best result a machine can give, this is the one.
The short answer
Quick picks
| # | Product | Best for | Score | Price |
|---|
| 01 | Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus (BB-PDC20)The best bread machine most people can buy, full stop. Dual heaters (top and bottom) brown the crust evenly, the horizontal 2-lb pan makes a standard loaf shape, and the custom programs let you dial in your own recipe. It's expensive because it's better. | Best overall bread machine | | $454.00·Amazon |
#ad · Live prices from the Amazon Product API, as of Aug 5, 2026. Where we have no verified live price we show none — a gap beats a number that has rotted.
In detail
The picks, in full
Best overall bread machine
Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus (BB-PDC20)
2-lb loafDual heatersHorizontal panGluten-free cycleCustom programs
The best bread machine most people can buy, full stop. Dual heaters (top and bottom) brown the crust evenly, the horizontal 2-lb pan makes a standard loaf shape, and the custom programs let you dial in your own recipe. It's expensive because it's better.
- Loaf quality
- 9.5
- Ease of use
- 9
- Crust & settings
- 9.5
- Build & footprint
- 8
- Value
- 8
Pros
- +Dual heaters give the most even crust color of any home machine
- +Standard horizontal loaf shape (two paddles), not a tall tower
- +Three programmable custom courses for your own recipes
Cons
- −The priciest bread machine on this list
- −Large footprint on the counter
Don't buy this if…
…you only want the occasional loaf and don't care about crust control — a sub-$150 machine will feed you fine.
Who should buy the Virtuoso Plus — and who shouldn't
Buy it if…
You bake bread regularly and want the most even crust, a standard loaf shape, and the ability to program your own recipes. For a committed home baker, the dual heaters and custom courses are exactly the features you'll appreciate every week, and it's the machine least likely to leave you wishing you'd spent more.
Buy something cheaper if…
You're new to bread machines or bake only occasionally. A beginner machinebakes a good loaf for a fraction of the price, and you can always step up once you know what you'd tune. Paying for custom courses you never program is money wasted.
Great for gluten-free and specialty loaves
The even heat and programmable courses make it one of the better machines for tricky loaves, including gluten-free bread, where uneven browning and rigid preset timing hurt the result most. Its dedicated gluten-free cycle plus custom control is a genuine advantage there.
The bottom line
The Virtuoso Plus earns "best overall" the honest way: it bakes a visibly better, more standard loaf and lets you control the process, and the price reflects real capability. For a frequent baker it's worth every dollar; for an occasional one it's more machine than the job needs.
How we picked
We don't run a testing lab
We read the manuals, compiled the published specifications, did the wattage-to-dough math and weighed aggregated owner reviews, then scored each product against a published rubric. The scores are judgments from documented research — they are notmeasurements we took, because we do not have a lab and we're not going to pretend we do. Every spec is the manufacturer's published figure, cited in Sources.
Questions
Frequently asked
Is the Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus worth the money?+
For a regular bread baker, yes. Its dual heaters brown the whole loaf evenly, the horizontal pan bakes a standard sliceable shape, and three custom courses let you program your own recipes. Occasional bakers can get a good loaf for far less from a beginner machine.
Why does the Zojirushi make a better loaf than cheaper machines?+
Mainly the dual heaters — a lid element as well as a base one browns the top of the loaf that single-heater machines leave pale. The horizontal two-paddle pan also bakes a standard rectangular loaf rather than a tall tower.
Does the Virtuoso Plus make gluten-free bread?+
Yes — it has a dedicated gluten-free cycle, and its even heat and custom courses make it one of the better machines for gluten-free baking. See our
gluten-free bread machine guide for how it compares.
Receipts
Sources
We don't run a testing lab, and we don't pretend to. Specs are the manufacturer's published figures, cited above; scores are our judgments from that research. Where we couldn't verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read our full method.
