Welcome to the cult. Me welcome to cult, too, I guess. I've always been very anti air-fryer. Felt like a solution without a problem. I already have a regular convection oven, why do I need a tiny convection oven? My feelings were exactly the same on toasters.
Then last week I was making a bagel - toasting it in the big oven - and then having a thought that this is just a bit silly. Anyway, all praise to Costco's sales gods and yesterday I picked up a good deal on an Instant Vortex Oven 13L. Went for an oven-style rather than a tray-style for the added flexibility.
Decent enough. It's definitely quicker than the oven. Still learning optimal settings/cook times as they are shorter than they would be in a standard oven / what the packaging often says, even if it has specific air fryer instructions. So far I've done a couple frozen items, and mostly just toasted some bagels. On the frozens - I did did jalapeno poppers and they came out crisp. On the bagels, it became very evident that the heat distribution is not entirely even and there are some hot spots. It's not awful, but there is a visible gradient to the toastiness level. Clean up has been fairly easy, too.
I thought about the Ninja 10-in-1. At least at MSRP the Ninja is like 2x as expensive, although goes on sale often, but the best sale I've seen on it still has it be about 30% more expensive than the Costco deal on the Instant. I think "30% more" is just the story of the Ninja - it's about 30% bigger, 30% hotter, preheats 30% faster. I ultimately wanted the smaller unit due to countertop space constraints, but if you're looking for an alternative to not having a standard size oven, maybe the Ninja is more appropriate. I did not have that need - I have a regular oven if I need to cook more.
One thing that definitely gave me pause on the Ninja is that there were more than a handful reviews saying that basically it's great while it works, but it also broke shortly after the warranty ran out. At least in my anecdotal experience that jives with my experience with Ninja/Shark brand products. They perform well but then also fail early and often. My track record with Instant products has been quite a bit more reliable, so I do trust them more.
I really like my ninja flexdrawer I got a few months ago (I got the smaller version - 6.6Litre because the big one was HUGE and I didn't have the bench space for that monstrosity!). It's been great for us (family of three) and I like the versatility of being able to just use half the drawer for eg a handful of chicken nuggets for my kid or both sides for eg a big slab of pork belly. What I love the most though is the easy clean up - the entire drawer can just go in the dishwasher and you're done. We previously had an oven style (instapot brand I think). That maybe had a bit more versatility for our circumstances at the time (temporary kitchen with no actual oven) but cleaning it well was impossible so that alone would put me off recommending it.
Edited to add the 6.6l flexdrawer would probably be big enough to cook a mostly complete meal for 2 people - eg a 2 person roast dinner in the full drawer or a protein in one side and a veg in the other side (maybe add some rice or something cooked with another method). Depends really on how you cook and eat - for dinners I tend to mostly use it for sides (eg roast potatoes and roasted broccoli etc) and cook my protein on the stove top or cook the protein in the full drawer and serve a salad on the side. I like the flexibility that you can have different cooking times and methods for each side so you can cook salmon fillets and roast potatoes all set at once but they each come out perfectly cooked.
Well, first, restaurants are deep frying their fries in a large professional deep fryer.
Personally, I feel the best air fryer for fries is a toaster oven style air fryer that has a rotisserie basket. Not a toaster oven with a air fryer setting but an air fryer with a oven setting. There is a difference. Fries in that rotisserie basket constantly tumbling just gets super crispy.
But
If you are using frozen fries. Any air fryer works great
DO NOT OVER FILL. Max temp for 15+ min and toss several times during cooking.
If using fresh potatoes. Don't. Not till you can successfully cook frozen fries
I purchased the same Vortex Plus with front window from a thrift store with the "Close Basket" error. The only solution for me was to open the unit and replace the micro switch. When you close the door, a cone shaped extension, visible on the top front center housing, gets pushed up to the micro switch. If the micro switch is faulty, you'll always get the "Close Basket" error. This used unit has been working for close to 2 years.
I hate my Xiaomi the Teflon is utter trash which makes cleaning it a chore. Owned a Cosori before it and now bought a Insta Vortex Plus. They use good Teflon unlike the Xiaomi
dinkygoat
