The average cook time in my best air fryer tests was 12.5 minutes, but the Instant Vortex Plus only needed 8 minutes to produce golden and crispy fries. The fries were evenly cooked and tasted great, not too dry and not too limp. The air fryer comes with a QR-scannable guide that includes cooking times for various foods. Generally speaking, and as is the case with all air fryers, these serve as a guideline as you grow accustomed to the device. As is the case with cooking in any oven, in reality cooking times may vary depending on the size, quantity, and even quality of the ingredients being used.
Thanks to the dedicated reheat function, it’s a great way to bring soggy leftovers back to life, by giving them a crunchy, crispy exterior. It’s large enough instant vortex to fit an entire chicken, so it’s an easy way to cook an entire dinner. Thanks to the nonstick surface, this air fryer is ideal for baking, too.
Truthfully, we’ve never contacted Instant™ support for this air fryer because it has not given us issues. There are a few things that we have found didn’t work out as well in the air fryer – or at least in this air fryer. We also made a frozen chicken breast and it turned out the same, just with slightly longer cooking time. Some – like this 8-quart instant vortex Vortex® – have dual-zone, meaning you can cook two different things in different temperature zones for different times. With a larger capacity, this might be ideal for a larger family than ours (two people). This means that we might miss the commands of the air fryer but we are attentive people when we air fry so this has never been an issue.
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.
Keen to put the Instant Vortex Plus through its paces, we trialled it over the course of a month to prepare a range of everyday foods. Get the best value on product protection including fast repairs or replacements.
Cooking foods like bacon and fried chicken imparted a significantly strong smell in the kitchen (and surrounding rooms). When we were using the machine, passersby by would immediately ask, “what’s that smell?” We took that as a bad sign. There aren’t presets built into the machine either, like a shortcut button for standard recipes like French fries. We had to do some digging in the Instant app in order to cook certain foods with appropriate time and temperature settings.