Instant Vortex Plus with ClearCook review

With its “EvenCrisp” technology, wide temperature range and illuminated viewing window, the Instant Vortex Plus has lots of clever features we were excited to try.

Keen to put the Instant Vortex Plus air fryer through its paces, we trialled it over the course of a month to prepare a range of everyday foods. 

A must-try for anyone new to the world of air frying, it seemed an obvious choice to use the Instant Vortex Plus to cook a batch of frozen chips.

We also followed a recipe for Air Fryer Chicken Tenders to see how well it could handle meat and tried the Air Fryer Broccoli and Cauliflower recipe to see how well it tackled vegetables.

At 5.15kg (11lb 6oz), we found the Instant Vortex Plus easy to lift out of the box and place on the worktop. In comparison, a dual air fryer such as the Ninja AF300UK weighs around the 8.2kg mark. 

As there was no smart app or added extras to contend with, it was a simple matter of plugging it in and we were good to get cooking.

While looks aren’t everything, it’s nice to have appliances on the worktop that are as attractive as they are helpful. Luckily, the sleek black and stainless-steel styling and compact dimensions of the Instant Vortex Plus look good on the worktop and don’t take up too much space. 

The 5.7 litre (10 pints) cooking drawer is deep and we found it could easily handle at least five portions of chips in one go. Its interior is, in fact, capable of housing a 1.8kg chicken or 1kg of fries with little to no oil needed when cooking.

While its drawer has this satisfying depth, we didn’t find the overall design too bulky, unlike some we’ve tested. 

Inside the box you’ll find a cooking tray that sits neatly inside the non-stick cooking drawer. This ensures your food is slightly raised from the base so any grease can drain. While there isn’t the biggest gap between the tray and base of the drawer, it did create some space for the excess oil to pool while cooking.

The ClearCook window on the front of the Instant Vortex Plus air fryer is what we think really makes it stand out from the crowd. It comes with a light you can activate as and when you need to. This means you can easily see how your food is doing without having to disrupt the cooking cycle. 

One thing we would like to change, however, is how quickly the cooking drawer slides out of the air fryer when you open it. We found we needed to position it securely on the worktop, or make sure we didn’t let go of the handle when it was halfway out and we were removing our food.

Our favourite feature of the Instant Vortex Plus is how smoothly the touch screen controls work.

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. 

With its easy-to-read controls and the handy viewing window, we were keen to see how well the Instant Vortex Plus could cook our frozen chips, chicken tenders and vegetables.

We started off prepping the broccoli and cauliflower by seasoning them with olive oil and sea salt and placed them straight into the deep 5.7 litre drawer. 

The air fry preset mode suggests 190°C for 20 minutes, but we took this down to 10 minutes in line with the recipe suggestion and pressed start.

Not all air fryers have a pre-heat function, but the Instant Vortex Plus does. 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”.  

With no par-boiling, we were keen to see how soft yet crunchy the broccoli and cauliflower florets came out. After 10 minutes inside, we were pleasantly surprised with the results. While the broccoli came out a little more charred than the cauliflower, they were both cooked through so that the storks were easily forkable but still had a nice crunch.  

Having tried air fryers without a window, we really noticed the benefits of this model.

The light goes out within seconds when the air fryer starts up, but it can be easily turned on via the control panel so you can check how your food is doing. This limits how often you need to open the basket to turn your food, letting heat escape. It also limits that annoying puff of cooking smoke that can hit you in the face when you open an air fryer drawer mid cycle. 

The viewing window really came into its own when we were cooking our chicken tenders as we could instantly see just how brown and crispy they were looking without having to open the drawer.

After air frying the chicken for 15 minutes, we found the insides to be suitably tender and the exterior noticeably crunchier than the results given by some air fryers we’ve tried. 

What’s particularly good about the digital display on this model is that it not only nudges you with a beep once pre-heating has finished and when the complete cooking cycle is finished, but it also reminds you to turn your food over mid-cooking cycle.

This feature is lacking on some popular air fryers we’ve tried. We found that the reminder worked particularly well when our batch of chips needed a shake.

We really noticed the benefits of the Instant Vortex Plus air fryer’s “EvenCrisp” technology here too, as our chips came out crunchy and perfectly cooked. 

We found the overall design, cooking technology and control panel on the Instant Vortex Plus impressive. We particularly like the fact that it has a grill feature included in its pre-sets, which we think is a bonus for basket style air fryers.

The pre-sets are tailored with optimum temperature and time settings – the Bake setting is set at 165°C for 8 mins, for example, while the grill feature is set to 205°C for six minutes.

All of these are just a guideline, however, and can easily be adjusted with a simple turn of the dial. The temperature goes up in 1°C increments too, which is a useful feature if you’re after a specific finish. 

This air fryer is one of the quieter models we’ve tried – it reached just 55 decibels while we were cooking chicken tenders on the air fry setting.

When it comes to cleaning, we were able to wash the basket with warm soapy water and wipe down the exterior. We buffed it with a dry microfibre cloth to ensure the shiny stainless-steel, black and ClearCook window exterior remained smudge-free. 

If you’re after a reasonably priced air fryer that provides much more flexibility than your standard design, we think the Instant Vortex Plus is a safe bet. 

One of the USPs of the slightly higher priced Instant Vortex Plus with ClearCook and OdourErase (view at John Lewis) is that it has the ability to prevent food smells.

We used strong flavours when marinating the chicken tenders in garlic, onion and paprika, and could have benefitted from this feature.  

There aren’t many 5.7 litre air fryers online that offer the convenient viewing window and premium finish of the Instant Vortex Plus.

You can find the similarly priced Tower Xpress Pro Combo T17076 Vortx 10-in-1 Digital Air Fryer at around £120 on Amazon.

It comes with a viewing window and enticing rotisserie function and also has double the capacity at 11 litres. The larger capacity however, does add inches to the width of this air fryer so may not be for you if you’re looking for something more compact.

For a similarly impressive 5.7 litre air fryer with grill function, you can try the Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer AG301UK, at £219.99 from Ninja.

This is noticeably different in design and doesn’t have the convenience of a viewing window but it does have the addition of a grilling facility, which gives food a delicious chargrilled flavour, similar to that of barbecued food. 

This option is also more compact, especially in height, so could be useful if you have low-level cupboards, which impact on your kitchen top storage.

With its precise temperature dial, useful reminders and convenient viewing window, we think the Instant Vortex Plus is great value.

While there could be improvements in the drawer design, we think it works as an excellent add-on or replacement to your standard oven.

We really enjoyed using the digital control dial that enabled us to easily experiment with precise temperatures and timings. We also appreciated the simplicity of its design and attractive finish.