What Makes Instant Vortex Plus 6 Quart Air Fryer Better Than Its Competitors
The Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer now boasts a progress indicator. While the indicator isnt the most accurate, its still a handy feature. For instance, instead of waiting blindly on how long the preheat will be, you can simply refer to the indicator.
Moreover, it now has a slanted design for the control panel .
Heres why thats an excellent feature:
When using your phone, its not straight-ly perpendicular to the ground. Theres usually an angle to see the screen clearly, right?
Thats the same idea as the new design . In short, with the Instant Vortex 6 in 1, you no longer have to crouch just to select a program!
Heres the best part:
This machine highlights a ClearCook. In a nutshell, its a glass panel , so you can see inside, just like a regular oven. In other words, you dont have to pull the basket and unknowingly let the hot air out and cold air in.
Simply put, youll have a better cooking experience and results.
Anyway, heres the birds eye view of the updates:
| Instant Vortex Plus Model |
Last but not the least, it features an OdorEase technology or in simple terms an air filter. Sadly, this feature introduces an extra step of replacing the filter.
But wait, let me tell you something:
Luckily, you dont have to replace the filter often. Of course, the advantage outweighs that con by a lot. Thanks to the OdorEase technology, your whole house wont smell bad, especially when making pungent recipes.
Instant Pot Vortex Review
The Vortex is fairly large, with a 10 quart capacity aimed at cooking for up to 6 people. It does look a bit tight to me in terms of being able to do a whole rotisserie chicken, but I have already seen some videos in the of whole chickens being done, including one over 5 pounds . I intend to try it soon. Update: Here is my Instant Pot Air Fryer Rotisserie Chicken Recipe.
What Can You Cook In The Instant Pot Vortex Plus 6
Since it has a 6 in 1 in the name, its apparent that this machine is more than just an air fryer. Essentially, the Instant Pot Vortex Plus can also roast, broil, bake, dehydrate, and of course, reheat.
Broil
Theyre all self-explanatory, but I want to point out a primary functionreheat.
Think about it:
When you reheat pizza, chicken, or any fried foods in the microwave, it ends up soggy. On the other hand, if you use the oven, itll take quite a while to preheat
The solution? Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer.
It quickly preheats, and you can still have that lovely crunchy/crispy texture, even if it isnt fresh. In short, air fryers are must-have appliances these days.
Note: It wont replace your microwave, but having the Vortex Plus 6 Quart Air Fryer alongside your microwave oven is indeed helpful.
Heres more:
Its wide temperature range allows you to dehydrate more ingredients. That is compared to other air fryers such as Ninja DZ201.
As if thats not enough:
This airfryer can make up to 6 portions, excellent whether youre cooking for yourself or for a substantial number of people. Suppose you dont need several servings. In that case, you can opt for the smaller and cheaper variant such as Instant Vortex Mini.
Also Check: Instant Pot Ground Beef Recipes
How Easy Is It To Build
The instructions offer one page on cooking, which shows you the preset duration and temperature. So, it’s not prescriptive, but allows room for experimentation.
Thankfully, the model is very intuitive to set up, because it only has three parts: the cooker, air fryer basket and pull-out tray. The only assembly you need to do is to slot the cooking tray into the basket, which is helped by a carry loop and silicone corners that protect them from scratches.
Two indents beneath its outer casing make moving it around the counter easy to do. Its non-slip feet are also incredibly effective.
Pass On This Air Fryer If:
- You’re limited on counter space or prefer to put your kitchen gadgets away after each use.
- You cook small portions or you have a small family.
- Prefer to only use recipes with specific time and temperature. This comes with presets you may never use.
- You want a budget air fryer. There are cheaper options than this Instant Vortex if you’re simply wanting a basic model without extra capacity or presets.
Recommended Reading: How To Start Pressure Cooker On Instant Pot
Cleanup Process: Only Takes A Few Minutes
The Vortex proved extremely simple to clean. No matter the cooking mode, we found most of the juices and greases collected nicely on the drip pan without making a major mess in the cooking chamber. Instant Brands suggests lining your drip pan and cooking sheets with tinfoil to make cleanup easier, but they were so simple to cleanjust a quick wipedown with a sponge or scrub brushthat we found it necessary.
If you dont have time to wash the accessories by hand, theyre also all dishwasher-safe, so you can pop them in without worry. Additionally, you can slide the door off of the Vortex , so you can wipe it down if anything really makes a mess.
How Easy Is It To Clean
I have tested several air fryers, but this is the first one of an oven style that features a rotisserie, rotisserie basket, and three separate trays. With that said, there are some parts of this model that are easier than others to clean. The cooking trays and drip pan all boast non-stick surfaces and are technically dishwasher safe. These pans actually cleaned up quite easily. I would recommend lining the drip pan with aluminum foil as recommended in the manual, to make clean-up even easier, but overall, a bit of hot soapy water and a non-abrasive cloth had them clean in no time, at all.
The rotisserie spit and forks, as well as the rotisserie basket, are all a bit trickier to clean, but even after roasting a chicken on the spit, I managed to restore them to their original shine. A 10-minute soak in hot water with dish soap really loosened up most of the browned bits that had stuck to the spit and forks. I felt comfortable scrubbing them as they do not have a non-stick coating. In the end, they looked as good as new.
The oven door of this air fryer is actually removable which is a nice feature. By opening the door to a 45-degree angle, you can rather easily disengage the hinge. This enables you to clean out any drips or crumbs that may have accumulated. I would not recommend submerging this door in water, however, as water can collect inside the window making it steamy and cloudy.
Read Also: Instant Pot Drip Catcher
How Would I Improve The Instant Vortex Air Fryer
To be honest, no air fryer is perfect, and there are definitely a few things that I found myself struggling with as I tested it.
- First of all, I would love this machine more if it had a lower heating element. As I discovered in my pizza cooking test, no browning takes place on the underside of your food making this a poor option for things like toast. Of course, it doesn’t claim to be a toaster oven, but a cook could dream, right?
- My second complaint is that the timer only goes up to one hour, which is fine for many things, but I would love to put this to use as a dehydrator and in many cases, an hour would simply not cut it.
- Finally, I found the manual and Getting Started Guide to be really limited. I have tested other machines that include recipe booklets with color photos that give you a better sense of their capabilities and options. Perhaps not a big deal, but I found myself running to my computer for help when I really wanted to be in my kitchen.
Should You Buy The Instant Vortex Plus 6
I really enjoyed using this air fryer. Its got a decent capacity and can produce crisp, evenly browned food in super quick time. One of its great features is the viewing window in the front of the drawer. Together with the light, the window meant I could keep an eye on what was cooking. This stopped me from opening it up too often to check whether the food needed a turn or a shake.
The controls are intuitive to use and with six functions to choose from, its a versatile air fryer thatll mean you no longer need to switch on the oven to heat and crisp lots of your favourite foods. In my opinion, its a brilliant air fryer, and the very reasonable £120 price tag means its a bit of a no brainer. To see more from Instant, take a look at our guide to the best multi-cookers.
You May Like: Paleo Recipes Instant Pot
Chef’s Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer Oven Review
Updated: Jan 31, 2022 by · As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
In my recent experiences with the world of air fryers, I have learned a couple of things: First of all, an air fryer is not really a replacement for deep frying your food, though it can help you in achieving healthy, crisp, golden, brown food.
And second, no two air fryers are created equal.
With these things in mind, I was prepared to be open to the capabilities of the Instant Vortex Plus when I opened the box to find an air fryer unlike any I have tested previously. I began to wonder if this would be a very unique experience for me or was this a similar air fryer with a different look. I was eager to dig in and give it a go.
In this article, I will show you some of the ways you can use the Instant Vortex Plus in your own kitchen, highlighting areas where it really excelled, as well as its shortcomings. Finally, I will offer a few comparisons with air fryers of similar price, size, and design.
My goal is to help you decide which air fryer is a fit for you based on your needs. After all, the price range for these appliances is quite vast and the features are varied. I believe that there is an air fryer out there with your name on it. First, let’s see what the Instant Vortex Plus has to offer.
Features: Everything You Need
Like other air fryers, the Instant Vortex Plus cooks food by using a motorized fan to evenly circulate hot air, thus eliminating the need for cooking oil. Weve already touched on the appliances different settings, but if you need a refresher, you can choose from seven different preset programs: air fry, roast, broil, bake, reheat, dehydrate, and rotate. If none of those fit the bill, you can also manually set the temperature and time controls. One extra feature we really appreciated was being able to save our settings. So say you nail down the exact temperature and time for chicken nuggets, you can save your setting and then get started with just the touch of a button the next time youre jonesing for chicken.
The Vortex has 1500 watts of power and the ability to circulate air rapidly with a trademarked One-Step Even-Crisp Technology. The manufacturer claims that this tech can reduce cooking time by 20 percent when compared to traditional cooking methods, and based on our testing, wed say thats accurate.
The best part about the rotisserie basket was that it continuously rotated the fries on its own, so we didnt have to manually flip them halfway through the cooking process.
Also Check: How To Put Instant Pot Lid On
The Instant Vortex Plus Xl Dual Doesn’t Perform As Well
The Brussels sprouts cooked in the XL Dual had significantly inferior, undercooked results compared to the singular model.
When it came to testing the XL Dual model, we experienced similar results to the singular Vortex Plus modelwith some disappointing differences.
While the double basket feature makes it easy to cook two recipes simultaneously, we found that the food didn’t come out as crispy as it did in the original Vortex Plus.
Brussels sprouts were tough, fries were soft, and potatoes didn’t brown after cooking in the time and temperature recommended by the Instant Brands app. With almost every recipe I triedwhile results worked well for the single-basket Vortexwe had to increase the cooking time in this machine.
If there had been a helpful manual included with the XL Dual, with appropriate and accurate cooking instructions, this air fryer would have been a home run. Its easy-to-use interface makes it easy to roast potatoes and air fry chicken at the same time .
The SyncCook feature is also an easy shortcut to use when using both baskets to make the same recipe.
Of course, double baskets means more counter space is required for this machine. And even though there are two separate cooking vessels, they’re not large capacity. Each basket can only hold up to four quartsso keep that in mind when filling them up.
Buy This Air Fryer If:
- You have counter space to spare. It is not as large as full oven style air fryers, but it is one of the larger square shaped air fryers on the market.
- Your family is large, or you would like to cook larger quantities of items at one time. This air fryer has a square shaped basket, so it holds more food in a single layer than egg shaped air fryers.
- You like the convenience of presets, but also like to be able to control individual time and temperature for a specific recipe.
- You want an affordable air fryer with some of the bells and whistles that the more expensive brands offer.
Recommended Reading: Indian Recipes Instant Pot
Top 10 Instant Pot Air Fryer And Instant Vortex Black Friday Deals & Cyber Monday Sale
The Instant Pot air fryer is one of the most popular kitchen appliances in the United States. With over 10 million sold, its safe to say its a hit among consumers. Its a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, air fryer, yogurt maker, and much more. The Instant Pot has received rave reviews for its versatility and ease of use.
Using the Instant Pot Air Fryer can cook your food quickly with little or no oil. The Instant Pot has a built-in pressure regulator, so you wont have to worry about high or low settings. As we said, it is a must-have appliance, so we decided to bring the black Friday deals on instant pot air fryers 2022.
Air fryers and multicookers are two of the most popular small kitchen appliances of late. If you’re low on kitchen space, you might be deciding if you should opt for one over the other, but the new Instant Pot Dup Crisp with Ultimate Air-Frying lid combines the best of both and could save you from having to decide.
The Instant brand has been making air fryers for a few years now but only recently added an air-frying feature to the popular multicooker. The latest Instant Pot release, the Instant Pot Duo Crisp with Ultimate Lid, sports built-in convection and air fryer lid along with a slim pressure cooker insert so you can use it as you would a traditional multicooker: Slow cook, pressure cook, steam, sauté and more.
What the Duo Crisp with Ultimate Lid does
How it performs as an air fryer
I made a few air fryer favorites with the Duo Crisp
Design And Key Features
- Easy-to-clean tray
Air fryers work by combining just a little oil with air thats quickly raised to roasting temperatures to produce the crunchy texture youd otherwise need a traditional deep-fat fryer to achieve. By cooking foods so quickly, an air fryer is able to ensure that they’re crisp on the outside but moist on the inside, using only a fraction of the oil thats required for conventional roasting or frying.
If youre accustomed to cooking such foods in the oven, youll also find the results from an air fryer far more succulent than those cooked in an oven, which can easily dry out food by the time its heated it all the way through.
A key design difference between the Vortex and other models is its 5.7-liter / 6-quart square basket, as opposed to the smaller circle or oval baskets in other air fryers Instant Pot boasts that it offers enough space to cook a small chicken. The square shape of the Vortex also ensures that you can make the most of every inch of space on your countertop, and that you can fit more into the tray, which is big enough to feed a whole family.
Note, though, that at around 32cm high and 30cm wide this is a relatively bulky appliance, so if you dont have enough room to keep it on a countertop youll need to store it away when its not in use.
The removable cooking tray inside the basket has a tendency to fall out when youre serving food, although this also means it’s easy to remove and clean between uses.
Read Also: Can I Cook Frozen Ground Beef In My Instant Pot
Instant Vortex Plus Dual Drawer Air Fryer Price And Availability
- List price: £199.99 / $179.99
The Instant Vortex Plus Dual Drawer Air Fryer, which is known as the Instant Vortex Plus Dual Air Fryer in the US, costs £199.99 / $179.99 and is available from Instant direct or through Amazon. This model sports a glossy all-black finish however, it also comes in an option with stainless steel accents, which is priced at £219.99 / $199.99. This model isnt currently available in Australia.
The air fryer’s predecessor, the Instant Vortex Plus continues to be available worldwide, including Australia. It has a slightly smaller 5.7-litre / 6-quart capacity and is priced at £119.99 / $119.95 / AU$269.
- Angular design with touch controls
- Can switch between C or F for cooking temperature
The larger capacity of the Instant Vortex Plus Dual Drawer Air Fryer means it takes up slightly more countertop space than the Vortex Plus, measuring 31.7 x 40.3cm x 38.4cm /12.5 x 15.9 x 15.11 inches . However, as weve already mentioned, it isnt as bulky as some other dual-zone air fryers on the market.
The air fryer doesnt come with a recipe booklet. Instead, youll need to go online or use the Instant app for your smartphone or tablet for inspiration. Theres also no cooking chart or guides, which means some experimentation over the ideal cooking temperature and time will be required. This is especially true when cooking frozen foods, to ensure you can cook them to your liking.
- Check on food with the help of window and light
- Requires some experimentation
