Bacon cooked on air fry was one of my favorite results in testing. It was crispy and the design of the slotted baking tray allows grease to drip through to a foil-lined crumb tray below, making cleanup nice and easy. Another great option is our best budget air fryer pick, the Beautiful 6 Quart Touchscreen Air Fryer by Drew Barrymore.
Yes, the basket could hold that much and cook them quickly, but they came out uneven with some overly crisped and others still soft and pale, so we wouldn’t recommend it for this. Although the basket has a 6-quart capacity, you can’t cook that quantity of food at once. For reasonable cooking times and best instant vortex results, you’ll only want to cook about 1 pound of food at a time or as much as can fit on the 10-inch square bottom in a single layer. During cooking you get a prompt on the screen to turn the food, which is helpful as it’s always a good idea to rearrange food during air frying to get an even result.
We enjoyed using this machine as a multicooker, achieving great pressure-cooked and slow-cooked beef stew and baked beans. This flip-top model had an interface with buttons that were intuitive to use. It had an instant pot duo nova exposed heating element on the inside of the lid, making us a little nervous we’d bump it and get burned. It had a small capacity, only fitting one 15-ounce bag of french fries or two chicken cutlets at a time.
Love love love that I don’t have to mess around cleaning the bottom of the actual unit. This is not one of those kitchen instant vortex appliances you pull in and out of a cupboard. Unlike small appliances, it is one that stays on the countertop.
With this air fryer’s customizable programs and precise temperature control, this versatile appliance can handle just about anything you throw at it, from appetizers to wings to veggies. And, if you’re running out of ideas or recipes, Instant Pot offers a free recipe book full of quick and easy-to-make meals. This appliance nearly took the top spot in our air fryers test, but the Cosori Smart Wifi Air Fryer 5.8qt performed slightly better in terms of chicken wings and breaded chicken. The Instant Vortex 6-quart Air Fryer impressed us with its great air frying results on brussel sprouts and, in particular, frozen French fries. While it doesn’t have preset programs for air frying, it is exceptionally easy to use as the buttons are clear and the display isn’t cluttered with icons.
Like with the Instant Pot, there will be a learning curve with the Instant Vortex Plus. It isn’t as straightforward as following the oven or air-fry directions on your packaged foods. You’ll probably need to lower the temperature while you’re baking and the air fry mode may need to run longer than expected.
This is perhaps the most interesting feature of the Vortex Plus. Not a common capability for your typical toaster oven or air fryer, this mode means you can make your own beef jerky, apple or banana chips and even homemade fruit rollups. Designed with families in mind, the Instant Vortex cranks out 4 to 6 servings in one cooking cycle. Its large footprint makes it best for people with a decent amount of real estate on their kitchen counter.
The TaoTronics air fryer has made our list of winners through multiple rounds of testing, and the brand recently dropped the price, making it an even better deal, too. In comparison to other air fryers on the market, this is in the lower range but does more. The vortex comes with a removable drip pan on the bottom that is easy to clean.
With no par-boiling, we were keen to see how soft yet crunchy the broccoli and cauliflower florets came out. After 10 minutes inside, we were pleasantly surprised with the results. While the broccoli came out a little more charred than the cauliflower, they were both cooked through so that the storks were easily forkable but still had a nice crunch. While looks aren’t everything, it’s nice to have appliances on the worktop that are as attractive as they are helpful. Luckily, the sleek black and stainless-steel styling and compact dimensions of the Instant Vortex Plus look good on the worktop and don’t take up too much space.
Both the insert and the basket are coated with non-stick, which means they mostly wipe clean and then need a little scrubbing with some dish soap and water. With this air fryer you get a removable air fryer insert grid which can be lifted and removed using a hook in the center of the grid. The drawer is not quite square, and we found it a little confusing to fit this inside the air fryer on the first use. Once we realised it needed to be turned 90 degrees, this was easy enough.