REASONS TO BUY
Good air frying performance
Quite user friendly
REASONS TO AVOID
Relatively poor temperature accuracy
Additional cooking functions somewhat lackluster
Instant Vortex Plus with Rotisserie Review
Good for air frying, but its extra cooking functions don't quite live up to expectations
Credit: Instant Appliances
RELATED: Best Air Fryers of 2024
Our Verdict
The Instant Vortex Plus with Rotisserie is a good air fryer that offers multiple other cooking modes as well. While we were generally pleased with its air frying performance, its other cooking features failed to impress us. Overall, we would recommend either getting a dedicated air fryer or investing in one of the better performing multifunction devices over getting the Instant Vortex Plus with Rotisserie. In fact, the non-rotisserie version of this device is one of our favorite air fryers on the market, and would certainly get our recommendation over this machine.
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Instant Vortex Plus with Rotisserie air fries well, but we found its other cooking modes slightly disappointing. If we were to live with one of these devices in our kitchen, we feel we would only really use its air frying function, and in that case, there are better options on the market.
Performance Comparison
The Vortex Plus with Rotisserie air frys well, but we found its other cooking modes slightly disappointing.
Credit: Laura Casner
Cooking Performance
The Vortex Plus with Rotisserie did quite well in our air frying tests. In fact, it produced some of the best sweet potato fries we've ever cooked with an air fryer — a notoriously difficult task for most air fryers. It also performed exceptionally in making tater tots, as the rotation of the basket made them come out near perfectly even and golden. It struggled a bit more to get a good crisp on onion rings and doughnuts but was still able to cook both dishes with aplomb.
Its various other functions, including baking, toasting, dehydrating, and rotisserie cooking, all worked relatively well in our tests. However, the non-traditional size and shape of the device limits what exactly you can cook in baking or toasting mode.
We were impressed by the crisp this machine could impart to sweet potato fries.
Credit: Laura Casner
User Friendliness
Overall, this product is quite easy to use. In particular, its touchscreen interface is clear and intuitive. This is key, as the device has many cooking settings to navigate through. All multifunction air fryers have to make some sacrifice in air frying convenience in order to offer other cooking features, and this product is no exception.
You can air fry either with the rotisserie basket or with one of its two trays. The trays must be carefully handled with potholders as they get hot during cooking. The rotisserie requires a special tool to remove, and then it must be handled with potholders. Either of these options are less convenient than the built-in handles on the fry baskets of most dedicated air fryers. In many cases, multifunction air fryers make up for these inconveniences with their versatility. In our opinion, this is not one of those devices.
This machine has more pieces to clean than most air fryers.
Credit: Laura Casner
Ease of Cleaning
All of the cooking accessories, including the fry basket, the rotisserie rack, and the baking sheets, are dishwasher safe. Like all oven-style multifunction devices, the difficulty in cleaning comes if a recipe splatters and gets the inside of the baking chamber dirty. In that case, you have to somewhat awkwardly scrub out and dry the inside of the oven.
Temperature Accuracy
The VortexPlus is one of the lower performers in our temperature accuracy tests. In general, our calibrated testing thermometers read 15-30˚ over the set temperature, occasionally getting as much as 50˚ above the expected temperature. We didn't see too many negative consequences of this in our cooking results, but it does seem it would be easy to dry out food given how hot this device can run.
Should You Buy the Instant VortexPlus with Rotisserie?
The Instant Vortex Plus with Rotisserie performs quite well as an air fryer, but we weren't impressed enough with its additional features and functions to ignore the idiosyncrasies that those features bring along.
What Other Air Fryers Should You Consider?
The Instant Vortex Plus offers up the same 6-quart capacity while delivering better cooking quality in an easy to clean package. Or if you want a budget option that performs very well across the board in all of our tetsing, check out the Ultrean Air Fryer.
—
Michelle Powell, Mallory Paige, and Max Mutter
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