Instant Pot - Vortex Series

I recently upgraded air fryers from my old trusty ninja foodi (the pressure cooker combo) to a Instant Pot Vortex XL with the dual basket. its opened up a bunch in terms of useability & ease of use. However to do again I would of gone for the Foodi with the Flex Basket. Id give up the extra quart of capacity to get the flexability of that big basket for when I am doign something that doesnt fit well in the smaller side by side baskets.

I bought the Instant Vortex Plus 6QT Air Fryer last summer and I love it. It has a window as well and I found it crisps my food much better than my COSORI. Also has an effective broil mode.

I find the window extremely helpful for keeping an eye on food that you don't have a actual air fryer recipe for. You're kind of guessing at what it would be and that window allows me to look at the progress without opening it up over and over again.

Instant vortex plus 6qt has worked amazing for us! We’ve had it for about 2 years now with no issues at all.

I don’t know about a dream but we use the hell out of it for wings, salmon and fried Twinkie’s and it has never let us down.

Yo, we were in the same boat not long ago - didn’t want any of that non-stick teflon coating bs, or plastic trays that smell weird when hot. Ended up grabbing the Instant Vortex Plus (stainless steel one) and it’s been solid. Trays are full stainless, no peeling, no coating drama. Cleans easy af. It just works. Been air frying the hell outta veggies, frozen stuff, chicken thighs, all that - and it's holding up like a champ. We also looked at the Cuisinart toaster oven w/ air fryer function - pretty sure you can swap the trays for stainless if needed. That one looks more like a real oven tho, more space but also bigger footprint on the counter. My advice? Skip anything that has non-stick unless you like scraping black flakes off your food in 6 months. Ask me how I know 😅 TL;DR: – Stainless trays or bust. – Instant Vortex Plus (SS version) been goin strong. – Avoid non-stick if you wanna keep your sanity.

> this was a big issue when they first came out; I assume they've fixed it by now Can confirm - it had a smell the first time I ran through a 15m air fryer cycle (empty, per the quick start instructions) and I haven't smelled anything since.

It’s one of the better ones I’ve had outside of an original vortex when the instapot stuff was made in Canada.

Id definitely go with the Instant vortex mini. its around $60 and is the recommended budget air fryer on wirecutter. You can find some good options [in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1lxgrty/best_budget_air_fryer/)

Philips, Instant Pot/Vortex, and Cosori are all better than Ninja. Ninja has bad non-stack and low power.

Thanks for your input! We have one of those instant pot vortex air fryers, just with a different label on the front. The house we are moving into has fairly new appliances. They were bought in '22 I believe but it's just the two of us and a dog so we don't often like using the oven if we can help it. I'll take a look at the Bella air fryer! I guess air fryers themselves aren't that expensive. If I'm going to spend $500 on appliances, I might as well look at a combi oven too 😂

Mine is the Instant Vortex. Slightly smaller than a standard microwave. Has two shelves. I use it for so much. Its great for chicken thighs, sausages, raw vegetables, making toast. And of course also from freezer to plate items. It heats up leftovers 10x better than a microwave. Pizza and fries especially.