In terms of air fryer accessories made by Instant, there aren’t too many. From chicken nuggets in our school lunches to funnel cakes at the county fair, digging into a fried meal is a tasty endeavor. However, it’s no secret that fried foods aren’t doing any favors for your health.
On our tests, we found that the Instant Pot 6 Quart Vortex 4 in 1 Air Fryer Oven performed best on brussels sprouts and frozen French fries. In fact, it was the only air fryer to score full marks for frozen French fries, needing just 15 minutes to cook. It also scored highly for breaded chicken as well, needing just 13 minutes to cook this after preheating. Thanks to the super-slick nonstick coating on the Instant Vortex’s basket, it’s very easy to clean.
The air fry preset mode suggests 190°C for 20 minutes, but we took this down to 10 minutes in line with the recipe suggestion and pressed start. Inside the box you’ll find a cooking tray that sits neatly inside the non-stick cooking drawer. This ensures your food is slightly raised from the base so any grease can drain. While there isn’t the biggest gap between the tray and base of the drawer, it did create some space for the excess oil to pool while cooking. At 5.15kg (11lb 6oz), we found the Instant Vortex Plus easy to lift out of the box and place on the worktop.
Instant also recommends starting with conventional oven directions on food packages as a guide for temperature and time, not directions for deep frying. Of course, that will depend on what you’re cooking, and therein lies my biggest issue with this machine. The manual provided in the box includes a small table of recommended times for a few foods, but for most, you’ll have to go through some trial and error to get a good result. I’m not a fan of wasting time or food, and I wish the directions were clearer on this front.
Though the instant pot duo nova has fewer functions than some of the other products I tested, I found that the simplified functionality can actually be a positive for many novice home cooks. Many competing products boast a ton of extra features that actually perform the same task, and I like that this product keeps it simple. Air fry, roast, bake, and reheat are enough to cover necessary cooking tasks in the average home kitchen. Instant instructs you to clean the cooking basket by hand, which is a little disappointing as most air fryer baskets can go through the dishwasher. This is to prevent any water from fogging up the ClearCook window after prolonged use. The Instant Vortex Plus 6-in 1 Air Fryer with ClearCook and OdorErase has a roast setting, so we used this to roast a selection of vegetables for 15 minutes at 370°F.
The Vortex Plus is currently retailing for $20 more than the Vortex. Our air fryer uses the basket method to cook while the 10-quart one uses racks or a rotating barrel or a rotisserie attachment for a whole chicken. It’s much more of a “mini convection oven” than just an air fryer. The Instant™ Vortex® Mini is fast, versatile, compact, and convenient, so you can make all your favorite fried sides and snacks with less of the oil and none of the mess. This small air fryer is available in 4 colors and features EvenCrisp™ technology for crispy, tender results every time.
The air fryer basket is non-stick meaning it’s easy to wipe down or clean with a little soap and water (never submerge the whole basket, though, only fill it/wipe it out with a cloth). This model has the same spacious interior, convenient preheating cycle, and stellar cooking ability as its predecessor. But for a bit more money, it includes a few bells and whistles that we particularly appreciated. It’s quieter than most of the other models in the lineup, and its viewing window allowed us to monitor cooking progress without losing heat. The only smells we detected were from the food we were cooking, and we found the control panel even easier to use than that of our winner.
The light goes out within seconds when the air fryer starts up, but it can be easily turned on via the control panel so you can check how your food is doing. This limits how often you need to open the basket to turn your food, letting heat escape. It also limits that annoying puff of cooking smoke that can hit you in the face when you open an air fryer drawer mid cycle. This air fryer can be simple, but offers the extra sophistication of cooking two different dishes at the same time, if that’s what you require.