This single-touch system allows you to program cook times for your most common meals and sides, that way you don’t have to fidget with it every time. However, if you’re up for the challenge of researching and experimenting with air frying recipes—and love the idea of peeking at your food while it’s cooking—the Instant Vortex Plus is a great choice. It performed well in crisping some of our favorite air fried foods and has a navigation touch screen that’s fun and easy to use.
It’s a simpler model and might just be right for your kitchen and cooking needs. If 6-quarts is a little too big for your cooking needs, you can also check out the 4-quart Plus model. It’s a smaller version of the moosoo air fryer Plus model. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability please get in touch at This model is intuitive enough to use without the instruction manual but we did discover from the instructions that you can select your cooking scale in Centigrade or Fahrenheit.
From a size perspective, and Plus aren’t 100% identical. The Vortex Plus weighs slightly more as it has additional cooking features. The Vortex is primarily a black plastic air fryer and the Plus has additional stainless steel accents.
A graduate of Emerson College, she’s had her work published in The Boston Globe, Culture Cheese Magazine, Modern Luxury, and more. In her spare time, you can find her experimenting in the kitchen, practicing yoga, or falling down a TikTok rabbit hole. When it came to testing the XL Dual model, we experienced similar results to the singular Vortex Plus model—with some disappointing differences. The ClearCook window allows you to monitor your food as it cooks—without letting heat escape. This model also has a stainless steel exterior, which makes for a sleeker look, and dishwasher-safe accessories. The Vortex Plus has stainless steel accents on the exterior.
Consumer Reports has fulltest results for the and dozens of other air fryers. The Instant Vortex sounds like three microwaves running all at once, as opposed to the more subtle fridgelike hum of other air fryers we’ve tried. I’m Cara and I’ve been cooking in a condo kitchen for years. Let’s help you find the right sizes kitchen appliances for your small kitchen so it can live up to its full potential.
You can potentially limit the additional small kitchen appliances you buy. Since air fryers are technically oven, it won’t be complete without a muffin tray. Air fryers are available with different capacity baskets, and estimating how much food you’ll cook during each use will help you choose the best option. Are you a solo chef who wants a side of French fries with your meals? A family with a few kids who clamor for heaps of fish sticks? Checkout The Best Air Fryer for a detailed review of all the top air fryers.
With almost every recipe I tried—while results worked well for the single-basket Vortex—we had to increase the cooking time in this machine. Unfortunately, we didn’t notice much of a difference with this air fryer. Cooking foods like bacon and fried chicken imparted a significantly strong smell in the kitchen . When we were using the machine, passersby by would immediately ask, “what’s that smell?” We took that as a bad sign.