Instant Vortex Slim 6-quart Air Fryer review: small but mighty

Ninja 4qt is still an excellent air fryer… we just prefer Vortex® head-to-head. Combination recipes in the air fryer are great because you can create dinner dishes quickly and efficiently with very little overall prep. Cooking fresh chicken breast in the air fryer turned out really, really well.

The tray and basket are both dishwasher-friendly, too, making for fuss-free meals from start to finish. Remove any packaging or plastic debris from the product before turning it on. For best results, make sure to clean the basket and cooking tray with soap and water then dry thoroughly before the first use.

It took about four minutes of pre-heating for the air fryer to reach temperature, and this is worth bearing in mind if you’re running a tight cooking schedule and juggling a range of foods. After four minutes, the air fryer beeped and its digital display told us to “add food”. The display is easy to navigate with pre-sets for air frying, roasting, baking, reheating, grilling and rehydrating. They’re conveniently positioned just above a central dial control, which lets you easily adjust the time and temperature too – from a very specific cooler 49°C to a powerful 205°C. Most removable parts (the cooking basket, tray, and any other cooking accessories) on most air fryers are dishwasher-safe.

instant vortex

Whenever we were worried about chicken overcooking or fries getting too brown, we could use the light button to illuminate the inner basket. From there, we could determine whether we wanted to take the food out early, add more time to the recipe, or just stare longingly at it until the timer beeped. We put this machine through a wide range of tests to see whether its air frying abilities really impressed us.

Of all the air fryers we tested, this is one of the most intuitive air fryers to program. The buttons are nicely sized, clearly marked, and quick to respond. To program the temperature and time, you turn and press a dial. The basket has a rack on which the food rests and is easy to pull out and reposition in the air fryer. The display is large and easy to read and the digital controls are intuitive to use. Like other Instant Vortex models, you won’t require much oil when cooking in the Slim air fryer.

There are some reviews that the coating on the accessories is flaked off from the factory. The best comparison for size is that it is a taller version of a toaster oven. It measures 13.4 inches long, 13.9 in width, and 14.4 inches in height. I purchased the Instant Pot vortex with my own money, and all of these opinions are my own. The Brussels sprouts cooked in the XL Dual had significantly inferior, undercooked results compared to the singular model. The ClearCook window allows you to monitor your food as it cooks—without letting heat escape.

Food easily wipes away (though the basket is also dishwasher-safe). This air fryer also has a few extra bells and whistles that helped it stand out from the rest. It has built-in safety features like overheat protection and an auto-off sensor that powers the oven down when not in use.

Make all your favorite finger foods with less oil and no mess and get food on the table faster. We have also developed a standard testing criteria for every air fryer we buy and try. We’ve made almost 200 unique items in this instant pot duo nova air fryer and it’s almost always worked out well. However, there are many third party accessories you can use with this style of air fryer. You can buy square parchment paper for the air fryer and some metallic caking forms.

They were somewhat successful as slow cookers and pressure cookers. But as air fryers, they didn’t always cook food evenly and we ultimately found them bulky and difficult to use, largely due to their flip-top design. Katya started out as an air fryer skeptic, but it is now the most beloved appliance in her kitchen. When it comes to air frying, we can’t find a better machine than the Cosori Pro LE; it made quick work of consistently crispy fries, wings, and more. For an option under $100, the Chefman 3.7-Quart TurboFry Air Fryer performed very well in all of our tests. With this air fryer you get a very limited guide which does explain how to operate the oven but for more details, cooking charts, and recipes you have to visit the company website.