We did find it browned frozen French fries and chicken nuggets well, but the limited capacity of the inner pot made it difficult to air fry large batches of food. The Instant Vortex has four pre-programmed settings to air fry, bake, roast and reheat similar to the Instant Pot’s seven settings. The caveat here is the Vortex only has eight buttons, four of which are those programs, plus Start, Cancel, Time and Temp.
It’s air fried evenly since day one and has never given us mechanical issues with the electronics, internal burner, basket integrity (even after an accidental drop), etc. Along with our in-house experts, our team analyzes thousands of product reviews from the most trusted websites. These parts are also easily cleaned by hand with warm, soapy water and a non-abrasive sponge. If there’s any particularly difficult to remove grease or stuck-on food, let the parts soak in hot, soapy water first. The basket is on the smaller side, but it’s dishwasher-safe for simple cleanup. If you’re a beginner, this couldn’t be simpler to use, and if you’re more experienced, it’s well-built for daily use.
We’ve come to expect the best from the maker of the Instant Pot, and the instant pot duo nova Plus doesn’t feel quite like it. While I loved the dehydrate feature and enjoyed watching a small chicken rotate on a spit, there are still some rough edges here. The Instant Vortex has an incredibly intuitive control panel that made it one of the easiest to use in my tests. You can easily remove the basket from the machine, and a built-in light lets you see what’s happening inside the oven without opening the drawer.
I found the built-in light to be a helpful feature in the , and in the Breville oven. Other fryers—like the Cosori, Dash, and Philips—lacked this handy light and were a little harder to use. This air fryer pre-heats, which is not a feature you’ll find with the Ninja air fryers we tested alongside this model. The pre-heat took about a minute and a half, after which the air fryer prompts you to add your food. If you don’t want the hassle of pre-heating it and then adding your food, we suspect that adding it in when you set the air fryer up to pre-heat won’t make too much of a difference to cooking times.
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There are some awfully expensive air fryers out there, but the Cosori Pro LE proves that higher price doesn’t always mean higher quality. It has a really nice, compact, sleek, and—most importantly—safe design. Air fryers have gained popularity for producing crispy, evenly browned “fried” foods without the use of a deep fryer. They work by circulating hot air around food, similarly to a convection oven, and eliminate the need for much (if any) cooking oil. Many air fryers are programmed with multiple cooking functions and can double as a toaster oven, convection oven, warmer, rotisserie, indoor grill, and more.