The Instant Vortex™ Pro countertop air fryer oven is perfect for creating quick and delicious meals. With EvenCrisp™ technology, you’ll get crispy, tender results every time. The size is perfect — big enough for growing families and replaces the need for 9 appliances. Built-in smart cooking programs make it simple to use, with customizable programs for easy cooking and Overheat Protection™ for safety. Fast, versatile, and convenient, so you can make all your favorite fried foods with less oil and no mess. The Vortex offers the quality, convenience and versatility you’ve come to expect from Instant – discover amazing.
Air Fryers
Instant Vortex Pro 10QT ClearCook Air Fryer, Clear Windows, Custom Programming, 9-in-1 Functions, Crisp, Broil, Toast, Roast, Dehydrate, Bake, Proof, Rotesserie, from the Makers of Instant Pot
$4.60
| Asin | B07VM1HQ87 |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 13.75"D x 14.37"W x 13.23"H |
| Weight | 17.5 pounds |
| Manufacturer | Instant Pot |
Derek –
This oven kicks do much butt. I just it every day, the trays are great, this device its easy to clean. And it offers a real good compromise between a toaster oven and an air fryer.
I appreciate the removable door, internal light, flip timer and more.
I disappointed in the lack off heft in the rotisserie. 2.5 lbs is firmly on the maximum weight it can spin.
I love using it though for beef and turkey breast. Its nearly impossible to find a young chicken to fit, but hens and quail work well.
You also get a basket, do roasting veggies is amazing as well. Or shell fish even. Worth while purchase.
Joe De –
I would have liked it if they included some recipes and cooking times and temperatures. I had to search the internet for a basic air fryer guide. It’s strange that a basic cook book isn’t included. I also would like some guidance on cooking a meal with assorted foods in the same batch. There are three shelves that you can cook on but they supply no info to help understand how to use them. It also comes with a rotisserie and a cylindrical rotisserie cage but has no suggestions on what foods its for or how to use it.
On a positive note: It’s well made and appears to be a quality product. Easy to set up and run, but without the above information that isn’t a benefit.
Update: 1/4/21, After using it for period of time I decided to experiment with more than just the air fry feature. That’s when I realized that some of the features didn’t work. The touch buttons were defective. But Amazon didn’t hesitate replacing it. They sent out a replacement and I had it in 3 days. The new cooker works as it is intended. Thanks Amazon.
To add to the above review, there are many YouTube videos that can help. The cooker in general and the shelves are very easy to clean but it should be noted that the basket is very hard to clean, especially on the inside solid wall. After cooking French fries there is a shellac like residue that hardens on the cage. Possibly spraying it with Pam might help. I also found that the fries are crispy and taste great but if you like to salt them it won’t stick to the fries.
Eric –
I’ve been using this for several months now and it’s the most used item in our kitchen. We have teen kids and a busy house and this is definitely to go to for cooking and warming up food around here. That being said, I have a few things to say about it.
Overall, the unit functions great. It does everything you’d expect and I use pretty much every feature that it has.
The good:
Dual racks that can hold a LOT of food. One tip to put out there for future owners is that the stacked racks are great, but you need to rotate the racks to keep the consistency of the food. Top rack will cook MUCH faster than the bottom. That’s the rack I use as a ‘broil’ rack. Middle and bottom racks are good but still need to rotate to keep the food cooking at the same rate.
The rotisserie basket is nice and use it occasionally, but not as often as I anticipated. If you have seasoned something like fries or tots, the rotating rack dries and knocks a lot of the seasonings/coatings off. It’s capacity is pretty limited as I discovered that you don’t want to fill it really any more than half full or even a little less. Anything more will slow the process and things don’t cook and crisp nearly as well.
The racks and base are nonstick and very easy to clean up… even when you make a big mess with something oily and drippy.
It has reminders of when to add food after preheating, when to rotate/turn your food and the interface is easy to read and intuitive to use.
The Cons:
By far, my biggest issue is the door. It drops down like an oven door. This means that when the door is open and you’re taking food out or putting it in, everything will drop and drip all over the door and down into the hinge. If it’s flaky, or breaded and you’re flipping or rotating things, the crumbs will drop all over the door and especially down into the hinge and will start to grind when you open and close the door. I actually have a little handheld vacuum that I grab often to vacuum out the hinge because there’s no easy way to get the crumbs and debris out of that hinge.
If you’re cooking something ‘drippy’, like chicken breasts, or a steak, the fats and juices will drip all over the door when you’re taking it out or turning the food and again… into the hinge that is nearly impossible to clean. Then you close the door to continue cooking so the fat dripping are on your glass door window and you’re cooking it onto the glass even more. This door thing drives me crazy, but I love the unit. I would MUCH prefer if the door hinged on the side and opened like a microwave. It would completely eliminate this frustration.
It also doesn’t align to shut often because the door has some play in so you have to jiggle a bit sometimes to get it to shut. You kind of get used to the feel of it and it gets easier and just one of the quirks about the unit.
That all being said, I love the unit and it works great.
Piraha Mura –
First I got the instant pot pressure cooker add on. I fell in love and it was too small for the entire family. So I got this one. When I saw the rotating cage I knew I wouldn’t consider others without it.
The add-on was actually faster to pre-heat than this fryer. The plug for the add-on has a barrier to prevent using both sockets of a typical electric outlet at the same time. It is probably because the pressure cooker is a lot tougher. The add on is not only smaller, also if you have to look at the status of the food you have to open it and stare deep into the bottom of the fryer. This fryer has a glass window that is a lot easier. And it’s a lot easier to turn the food because you just slide out a tray.
Honestly, this is a plastic box with a stainless steel skin. Most budget appliances are like that. If you want more metal you need to pay more for that. The steel skin is decent when some other appliances are a bit flimsy. The inside is all metal too with a tough glass door. I did saw a tiny jet stream leaking out near the front gaps (not the door) when I first use it. But I didn’t see that again.
The coupling to the rotating cage is tough plastic. It would be a lot more expensive to make with a metal part. But it is unthinkable to melt those pieces of plastic with only 400F. The guy who managed to melt it must be doing something unthinkable, or, of course, there’s some sort of malfunction when the temperature is out of control.
There is some plastic smell when you first use it. But it will go away very soon, like after 10 minutes of frying. And it’s not bad unless you use a much higher temperature than 400F, which I don’t think it’s possible.
The cage is stainless steel which has quality. There are two frying trays and a drip tray all have a quality non-stick surface. Since there’s no direct heat on any of these, cleaning should be easier than a pan or wok. Disher washer using white powder pods should get them cleaned. If not, my go-to is to submerge everything in boiling water and add washing soda (or baking soda). Everything comes off easily or food stains don’t accumulate; you can do a more thorough cleaning when you have the time.
I have a range hood like two jet engines but I can only hear strong winds hitting on the grease filters. The noise of this fryer is overwhelmed by my range hood but the pitch of the fryer is higher so I can still hear it.
When the fryer is hot, the label on the glass door can be peeled off effortlessly.
I know some models carry the warning label about BPA and lead. I looked into it and it’s either nutjobs, corporate sabotagers, or conspiracy theorists. My model doesn’t come with a warning so Instant Vortex may have dealt with it.
First, it’s too late to worry about non-stick when an associated chemical can be detected in most of the population. Nowadays, non-stick materials don’t use bird-killing chemicals and won’t have that in the non-stick to leak out. The non-stick itself material is rather inert. Without direct heat as in woks and pans, any health risk will be one dimension less.
BPA is associated with soft plastic. The plastic coupler in the fryer is as hard as it can get. I don’t know why there is an issue when there’s no food contact with the plastic. Any BPA has to leak out as gas to make any possible contact with food. But you how strong the air circulation is inside the fryer.
A blogger has the equipment to test for lead! Where she discovered lead, there is no food contact. I remember she discovered traces of lead in the cord/plug, and something like the inside of a rice cooker. Isn’t that nuts? The inside of the rice cooker isn’t in touch with anything other than the bowl. The lead have to leak out to the bowl but any traces would have been largely eliminated when you rinse/wash it. In comparison, everything wood and metal in hardware stores are cancerous per CA P65. And is the cord inside the conducting metal or on the outside plastic? I will be surprised if you find lead in plastic.
But why test only this fryer? I bet you can discover lead in every appliance where there is no contact with nothing. Anyway, it’s not a major issue. The suppliers just happen to give you something with lead or BPA in it when it’s not expected. Hard plastic doesn’t usually contain BPA and BPA free plastic isn’t a big deal. Similarly, you can swap suppliers for a lead-free component in some obscure places inside.
Lorie –
We bought this for the air fryer option after we tried a black and decker bowl version during a family trip. My 12 yo liked the air fryer for its ease of use. He is reluctant to use our oven. We purchased this for the size and multiple functions. We have only had it for three days but already we LOVE it. We read all the reviews so we decided to actually read all the instructions. We washed all of the attachments before use. The initial “chemical” smell was very mild and only on the first two times used, once for the initial warm up and the first time with food. I love the toast option because I was due for a new toaster and did not want another appliance on my counter, so this has also replaced my toaster. So far we have made toast, naan, wings, chicken nuggets and all have turned out great. We are making an effort to get to know how much time our regular repeat foods take. It is easy to see inside the window to watch for how brown the food gets. We have a set of bamboo toaster tongs and a small silicone tongs to reach in to grab or turn food. We also purchased the small silicone oven mitts to pull out the trays. They are great for pulling out the trays and setting them down. The silicone mitts are not thick enough to hold a hot tray and carry it around the kitchen trying to find a place to set the tray down because eventually you will feel the heat through the mitt. The door comes off for cleaning, therefore it feels like it can come off when you open it, open the door with common sense and it will not fall off. We have not had a problem. The buttons are touch sensor, easy to use, but they are NOT push buttons, you have to leave your finger on the button for a moment for it to read your touch. My 12 year old can use it and he likes it. My husband who is the chef and resident foodie in our home loves it, just like his instapots. As for me, the non cook who just wants a clean uncluttered kitchen, I like the look of the model as it sits on my counter, it is easy to clean and it does not heat up my whole kitchen like the oven does. Easy, pretty, great tasting food.
JW –
It does almost everything it claims to do.
THE GOOD:
REHEATING – This thing is awesome! I now can use the air fry to reheat things I never would have reheated before. Reheated french fries are sometimes even better! Crispy outside, fluffy inside.
ROTISSERIE – I did a Cornish hen and it came out wonderful. You can do a very small chicken but any larger will not fit. It cooked faster than I thought it would. About 2/3 the time it would have spent in the oven. And the perfectly browned and crispy skin all over was as tasty as it looked.
AIR FRY – Great for things that were previously fried like frozen fries, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks… But I’m not giving up the deep fryer for making tbese things from scratch.
BAKE – Pretty good. Because of it’s size you’re not making anything too large in here but you can use both racks at the same time. Be careful with anthing that rises though, the heating element is on the top and you want to make sure to keep your items a safe distance. Also be careful with time and temperature. This does cook faster. Again plan on 2/3 the time and add more if needed.
BROIL – This is no different than air frying. But it’s still good.
THE BAD:
DEHYDRATE – There are only 2 racks so you’re only going to fit a very small amount in there. The fan will blow your items around as they dehydrate and become lighter in weight. I haven’t tried herbs yet but I imagine them flying all over in there. It takes a very long tiime, 14 hours for thinly sliced apples. I really don’t want this tied up that long.
THE UGLY:
TOAST – I have only tried white bread so far. It comes out way too dry to enjoy. I have been able to make it a bit better by putting a cup of boing water on the bottom tray. The only way I could get a good slice of toast was to spread it with butter BEFORE toasting it. It took longer to toast but it was good if you want buttered toast but that doesn’t work for cream cheese or other toppings. I do think it will make good croutons though.
Frozen waffles are too dry too unless you have thicker, belgian style waffles.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER:
CLEANING – Easy to clean as long as you do it every time. The racks and drip tray are dishwasher safe but are so easy to rinse clean there is no need to use the dishwasher. And the nonstick coating will last much longer if you wash by hand. The basket is not coated and not as easy to clean. The door comes off to make it easier to clean. While not much fat is used with this there will be small oil splatters on the sides. I recommend cleaning the sides each use or the splatters will cook on and yellow. I hate that but it’s up to you how much you clean it.
HOT – The racks and anything you put in it will be very hot! Don’t let kids use this and do keep an oven mitt nearby.
SPACE – The width and depth are the size of a small toaster oven. The height is over 14 inches and you need a couple inches above it to vent. It will fit under most wall cabinets. But, if your cabinets are hung low or you have trim around the bottome of them, this may not fit. Just take a minute to measure first. If you have less than 16 inches between your counter and upper cabinets you shoud look for somthing else.
APPERANCE – This looks great in my kitchen. I think it would look good in any kitchen with black or stainless steel appliances. It’s very clean and modern.
I hope this helps you with your decision.
Twinrocks –
Being a fan of anything Instant Pot, decided to try Instant Vortex Pro 9-in-1 Air Fryer, 10 Quart, Air Fry, Roast, Toast, Broil, Bake, Reheat, Dehydrate, Proof & Rotisserie.
I have had air fryers before and sent them back or resold because I didn’t like how clunky they are for only doing one thing.
So far the Instant Vortex has proven to me that I will be keeping this to enjoy for a long time.
After performing the first step as stated in the manual, there was an odd smell. I will go into that towards the end of this review.
The first thing I air fried was basically another test. I cut a potato in 4 thick slices and placed them on the frying tray. I didn’t place any oil or anything on them. Once they crisped and turned brown I took them out and actually loved the taste!
Next I made Southern Air Fried Chicken. I used 4 boneless thighs. These were done in 25 minutes and were very moist and good. Now, you must realize that the taste is not going to be like chicken fried in oil, but that is exactly the point. You get crispy moist chicken without all that fat!
The Instant Vortex looks good on the counter, works very well, and cleaned up quickly and easily. What a huge plus that the trays cleaned so easily from the mess I made!
Now for the bad. My son bought one of these and had no smell when he used it. Not the case for me. When I did the first test for 20 minutes my house filled up with this bleachy chemical smell that made our eyes water. We opened every door and window and turned on an exhaust fan. It was really awful. Off to the garage it went where I put it through three more tests. Then I placed a bowl of vinegar with some lemon slices in it and ran it twice. Finally the smell was only faint, so it came back in the house for use. When cooking my chicken the smell was barely detectable, so I feel confident again.
After having a few air fryers, this one is a keeper. On the plus side you can do so much more than only air fry.
A great addition for my husband and I.
UPDATE: I was wrong about the smell going away, it’s still there and awful! I reached out to the company and they sent a replacement. So far I have ran it 3 times in the garage and it still emits a strong smell. It will stay in garage where I will run it daily and hope that smell goes away. What I don’t understand is some people have this issue and some don’t. At least I know I am not the only one. I am not giving up on this item because I love the way it cooks food.
Don –
Great size, easy to understand display, though the preheat is a bit tricky. Whatever time your old air-fryer used, cut it in half until you get used to this one. We lost many a Rally Fry learning this lesson.
KP –
Per the instructions I ran it once before cooking so I didn’t experience the plastic smell (stated by other reviewers) when I actually “fried” my first thing… BACON! Yum. It was cooked perfectly and it didn’t splatter on the sides or ceiling. Of course, grease dripped into the pan. So easy to clean. Then I made cauliflower florets, potatoes and more bacon. Its lightweight so easy to move in my small kitchen. I can easily change the duration for cooking, if needed. Seeing through a glass door was a must, for me. I love to cook and I highly recommend the Instant Vortex Pro. My girlfriend recommended it to me. She’s been using hers for 3 years nearly every day.
George Cusack –
I’m now on my third Vortex Pro. The first one was my fault–I dropped it on a tile floor and it broke spectacularly. The second one was pure design error, though: I tried to cook a chicken that was SLIGHTLY over 4lbs and wasn’t tied PERFECTLY on the spit, and the bird caught on the floor of the oven and stripped the bolt that holds the spit in place.
This is the central problem with this unit–it’s smaller than it looks, given its huge footprint, and it’s actually difficult to buy a small enough chicken to fit on the rotisserie. Even if you get the right size, you have to tie it onto the spit exactly right, so no parts are sticking out even slightly, or it will catch as it goes around. It’s a huge pain. Don’t even think about a turkey breast, a duck, or a pork roast over 3lbs.
That said, I’ve shopped around and I really think this is the best option on the market. When you do get the rotisserie to work, it works REALLY well–best roast chicken I’ve ever made at home (and much better than Costco or the grocery store). It also works as well or better than any air fryer I’ve ever had. Salmon, potatoes, carrots, tofu, Brussels sprouts, etc–I’ve honestly never tried an air fryer recipe and been disappointed with the results. As other reviewers have noted, the dehydration and proofing functions are a bit useless, but that’s no surprise, since convection ovens aren’t really designed for those functions.
In fact, I kind of wish this oven wasn’t so good at what it does well, because I’m getting tired of giving Instant Products my money. When my second unit stopped working properly, I tried to call in the warranty. Instant Products customer service was so slow and required so many hoops (multiple pictures plus video of the problem, pictures of the serial number taken just so–it was a saga) that I just decided it was more worth my time to buy a new unit on sale. I kind of feel like I’m rewarding them for poor design and bad service, but my family is really missing good roast chicken and homemade fries, so here we go again!