Air fryers have become the next big kitchen appliance and it's not hard to see why - They're quick, cook crispy food, and most importantly, do so without the extra oil.
Now, it happens more than often that some particular air fryer model creates a buzz, on TV, the internet, everywhere. Do all of those live up to the hype? No.
Many are the result of a brilliant marketing team, instead of a brilliant engineering team. But some of them do earn the hype, with their brilliant cooking performance.
In which category, the latest sensation, Power Xl Vortex Air Fryers fall to? In today's Power Xl Vortex Air Fryer Reviews, we’re going to find out.
A Brief About the PowerXL Vortex Air Fryer
The PowerXL Vortex Air Fryer is offered in four different sizes: 2-, 3-, 5- and 7-quart. The 7-quart variant comes in two finishes - red and black, whereas the other 3 comes in black finish only.
The highlight of the fryer is the Vortex Rapid Air Technology. This piece of technology is responsible for circulating the air inside quicker than traditional air fryers. It makes the food cook more evenly and faster than already fast air fryers.
The Vortex is much more than an air fryer. It comes in 10 different presets for cooking french fry, fish, steaks, chicken, shrimp, pizza, and so on, and it can air bake, broil, air roast, reheat and dehydrate.
The versatility of this fryer with the Vortex rapid air technology sets this model apart from other options, in the paper. But how do these features translate to better output in the kitchen? Let’s find out.
The Things I Liked
For the upfront bottomline, the PowerXl Vortex Air Fryer is a kitchen appliance to cherish so there’s a lot to like about this, than things to not like to. Here are the things I loved about this fryer particularly and why:
The LARGE Basket
It could vary though, depending on which variant you go for. My recommendation is to invest in the 7-quart model for once and enjoy the "big basket" benefits for years, or at least the 5-quart model.
However, if you have concrete reasons to go for smaller sizes, the 2 or 3-quart models, then you're going to enjoy all other benefits except for the big basket facility.
When you pick the 7-quart model, you’re going to love the extra basket space it offers, and will wonder how much food you can cook at once. Toss fries and a steak at the same time, no problem; pork chops and fried potatoes simultaneously? No issues.
You can have larger batches and accommodate a lot more food than other fryers available on the market. In one batch, you could fit four tenderloin steaks, or ten meatballs with ample amount of space around them for great air circulation, or even a whole fryer chicken. In two, you could prepare eight big pieces of crispy Southern-style chicken.
The 5-quart model is also quite spacious to accommodate a large amount of food at once.
Quick Preheating
This fryer preheats in say, a blink of an eye. It takes only about 2-3 minutes to preheat fully which is faster than most other air fryers and obviously, way faster than any conventional oven.
You’ll have your fryer heated, then the snacks air fried, and served before your oven would be prepared for cooking.
Browning Power
We all love to see our food, browned. For me, it increases the appeal for the food by quite a lot. However, air fryers are known to not bring the same golden hues that a traditional fryer brings to your food.
Well, until the vortex. Probably we should thank the vortex rapid air technology, this fryer is capable of bringing the golden-brown color to most of the foods. Foods come out of the vortex evenly browned and looking as delicious as oven-roasted ones.
Intuitive & Simple Controls
From my experience, this fryer is straightforward to use and there’s nothing that’s confusing about operating it. The power and other buttons are there, pronounced, and you can tell which button does what by looking at it.
However, I’ll still recommend going through the manual before starting to use it for the first time, which will let you know the ins and outs of this fryer and won’t take long at all.
Easy Cleanup
Many vortex owners got a little confused here. According to them, cleaning it up is quite a job, as they could not remove the bottom plate. And cleaning the fryer without removing it is really a job.
But there’s a catch here. The bottom plate is removable and as a result of not taking 5 minutes to go through the manual, many have missed it I guess.
It’s quite simple, you have to take off all 4 rubber bumpers that are there, and then you can lift it off and remove the plate. However, this first rubber might seem a little hard to take off, and that’s why I thought many have given up when trying to execute this idea that came up in their mind too.
Once you take the first one-off, the rest comes off easily, and then you can simply remove the plate. Now, once you take everything off, cleaning up is a breeze as both the tray and the basket have a nonstick coating on them, so cleaning this appliance shall be as easy and quick at the same time.
What About Downsides?
Here’s the upfront verdict: this fryer barely has any downsides. I had to nitpick to mention a few insignificant ones because that’s my job, to come up with small details for you.
So, firstly regarding the quick cooking. Since this one cooks even faster than other air fryers, you should not be assuming how much your food has been cooked in a given time period, rather you need to be checking every few minutes to find out and to prevent overcooking.
Now, that leads to another issue. This fryer does not come with a peek window through which you could check on your food. So every time you have to draw the basket out to check out the food, which is not ideal.
Also, you need to plug the fryer far away from any smoke detector, otherwise, they go off. Another silly thing to notice is that the beep sound the fryer makes when the food is done is quite high pitched so it could bother a few people.
And to mention, this fryer always requires two hands to close it. I know this isn’t a big deal but when you’re multitasking, you have to put everything else down to fill the fryer, so keep that in mind.
If I had to be honest, I'd say this fryer didn't really have any con, but as a reviewer, I had to stretch out and nitpick to tell you a few. None of this seems even close to be as significant to be a deal-breaker.
Power XL Vortex Air Fryer - Unboxing, Review & Demo
Power Xl Vortex Air Fryer Reviews - The Verdict
This fryer has impressed me and earned my faith that I can be recommending this to people and they’d be satisfied.
This sleek appliance browned up my food like no other fryers and also allowed me to cook a large batch of food at once and quickly. The flavor and the test the food had been good and keeping in mind that it had way less oil in it gave me a boost in inner peace.
The big models are large enough to cook a rotisserie-style chicken, how cool is that? You can check our rotisserie chicken recipe to make you one and you’ll love the test.
And about the Vortex, don’t hesitate, it’s a great air fryer to make it to your kitchen.
Chester’s expertise in air fryer cooking stems from her belief that air frying is one of the healthiest and most convenient cooking methods. Her recipes are designed to make the most of the air fryer’s unique cooking properties, producing crispy and delicious meals without excessive oil.
