Instant Pot Vortex Dual Drawer 8L Air Fryer

Introduction

The Instant Pot Vortex Dual Drawer 8L Air Fryer is a keenly priced dual-drawer air fryer, offering the convenience of doubling-up cooking or using each drawer for a different part of the meal.

Its £129.99 price pits this firmly in the mix against some of our favourite options in recent times, such as the age-old Ninja Foodi Dual Zone 7.6L Air Fryer and Salter Fuzion Dual Air Fryer, which have graced our ranking of the best air fryers for a long time.

This Instant Pot option, on the face of it, has all the makings of a decent choice, with a respectable eight-litre capacity, a good range of cooking functions and solid build quality.

I’ve been using it as my main air fryer for the last few weeks to see how well it performs against those key rivals.

Design and Features

• Decent 8-litre capacity
• Solid build quality
• Programming can be a little fiddly

For its reasonably-sized internal capacity of eight litres, this Instant Pot air fryer feels a lot more compact when on my smaller kitchen counter. Other air fryers of a similar size have dwarfed the area, but not this one.

That capacity is split down the middle between two four-litre baskets, giving you enough space for fair portions of family meals, such as chips on one side and chicken or fish in the other.

The baskets have a decent weight to them, while their silver handles offset the otherwise black chassis nicely for a welcome dose of style. Their dimensions feel longer than other air fryer baskets, at the expense of being a little narrower, which I don’t mind. It works in their favour when washing up, being easier to put into my sink.

They also have buttons on them, which isn’t a feature I think is seen enough on all air fryers – the other one I’ve tested with it on was the Cosori 6L Turbo Blaze. It’s a useful security measure to prevent any unwanted accidents with little ones yanking the drawers out.

Inside those baskets are some crisper plates, complete with integrated handles to make them easier to fish out of the bottom of the baskets. They are metal, but feel a little thin against crisper plates in rival air fryers I’ve used.

Internally, this Instant Pot has two elements on top – one for each zone, which is pleasant to see. Cooking functions are selected on the glossy control panel on the air fryer’s front plate.

 The functions here are listed by method, as opposed to being for specific food types, which is arguably more convenient. You get six functions to pick from, labelled using icons, rather than works. This makes programming the air fry a little fiddly, as I needed to refer to the manual on the first couple of uses to remember what they were. This isn’t uncommon with more affordable air fryers, but is still a small niggle I have with this one.

Nonetheless, you get individual selectors for both time and temperature, with the latter being able to be set in single-degree increments for super-precise operation. If you leave it too long when programming what you want to do, the control panel will shut off, and you’ll need to start again. When cooking, you also get a ‘turn food’ notice halfway through, which is neat.

There is also a companion app available if you want specific recipe advice that’s handy, although it lacks any of the smart control seen on more expensive options.

Maintenance for this Instant Pot air fryer is nice and easy, with the baskets being able to be washed up with ease in a matter of minutes. The baskets and crisper plates are dishwasher safe, if you don’t want the hassle of doing it manually.

Performance

• Consistent, crispy results across different functions
• Grill and Roast are particularly impressive
• Pre-heating is a bit of a pain

Over my couple of weeks with this Instant Pot air fryer, I cooked a range of different food to best gauge its performance. In general, I was impressed with its ability to get consistent and crispy results in the case of chips, as well as the potency of its grill for trying out some chicken sausages, for instance.

My first test involved cooking some crinkle-cut oven chips in the left basket at 200°C for 14 minutes, while also cooking some steak in the right basket at 190°C for 20 minutes. Both were done on the Air Fry setting, and the air fryer took eight minutes to preheat on both. It then told me to add food, and then I could start cooking.

The chips were well-browned, even and crispy. The three steaks took the full 20 minutes, and while they may have come out more on the well-done side, the meat was still flavourful and juicy inside. I set both of them to use the Sync-Finish function, which held the chips from cooking until the steak hit 14 minutes on its timer, so both were done at the same time.

The Grill function impressed, with it cooking a fair portion of chicken sausages for a breakfast sandwich, and to add to some leftover pasta, at 200°C for 14 minutes. The preheat here was only three minutes, and while they did need turning halfway through, the sausages were evenly cooked and tasty.

To give the Sync Cook function a run-out, I cooked some fishcakes back on the Air Fry function at 200°C. Setting it on the control panel was as easy as pushing one symbol on the control panel, and both sides of the air fryer cooked simultaneously, with crispy results.

A surprise to me was how well the Instant Pot dealt with carrots on the Roast function. Depending on the air fryer, carrots can either cook wonderfully, or take an age, without par-boiling. Recent efforts in other air fryers such as the Sharp 5.5L Air Fryer necessitated par-boiling before they would even begin to cook, which thankfully wasn’t the case here.

Instead, the Instant Pot cooked them for around 15 minutes at 180°C, resulting in al-dente carrots with a rich flavour that paired well with some roasted meat.

In addition, I also took the chance to Air Fry some store-bought beef dripping Yorkshire Puddings, which came out wonderfully in just four minutes at 180°C.

Should you buy it?