To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more
- Odour filters help to reduce greasy smells
- Dishwasher-safe parts
- Favourite settings can be saved
- Crowded control panel
- Only four presets
- Not as suitable for larger households
If your kitchen is compact or your worktop space limited, it’s likely that you’ll eschew the biggest, bulkiest air fryers for one of the best small air fryers instead. Joining their ranks is the Instant Pot Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer, complete with innovative features that put it head and shoulders above others.
These include filters at the back to reduce lingering greasy smells after cooking, the ability to save your favourite settings, and a wide, deep drawer that might be on the smaller side but can still squeeze in a whole chicken (a 1.5kg bird was a tight fit) or 750g of chips. It’ll cook 3-4 servings, making it good for smaller households or families.
While its range of programmes is more limited than some, the selection includes those you’re likely to use frequently, such as bake and reheat, as well as dehydrate: a low-temperature drying option that doesn’t always feature on smaller or more affordable air fryers.
The Instant Pot Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer is also impressively good at cooking, turning out near perfect results during testing. Plus, as the drawer and cooking plate are both dishwasher safe, it has the potential to be beautifully low maintenance into the bargain.
What do you get for the money?
Even the best small air fryers can be limited when it comes to capacity: while Ninja’s Air Fryer Pro 4.7l AF140UK offers a relatively generous 4.7 litres, Tower’s T17023 2.2L Air Fryer fits just 2.2 litres inside. So, it’s a real benefit that the Vortex Compact grants 5 litres of cooking space, enabling larger cuts of meat and poultry to be roasted without squashing. There’s plenty of flat space too, thanks to a 19cm² cooking plate.
For all its capacity, it’s compact enough for a small kitchen. As it measures 26.7 x 34.8 x 27.9cm (WDH), it should easily fit below most wall cabinetry, or in a cupboard, and it weighs just 3.91kg.
Its touchscreen controls offer a more basic choice of programmes than most: air fry, bake, reheat, and dehydrate. But there’s the option to toggle these in time and temperature, as well as save four of your favourites. Other features include an internal light and drawer window (a feature we loved on the Instant Vortex Plus Dual Drawer), so you can check on cooking progress without opening it, as well as a pair of filters at the back of the air fryer to reduce cooking odours. It’s worth noting that the filters will need to be replaced, so there’ll be an additional cost over the lifetime of the machine.
As you might expect, this compact air fryer has lower wattage than larger models, at 1500W. It’s pretty efficient once it’s reached temperature: one hour’s usage at 200°C consumed just 0.412 kWh of electricity, which at a rate of 25p per kWh would cost around 10p.
What’s it like to use?
If you like beeping noises, Instant Pot’s Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer is for you. It’ll make a noise when you turn it on, when the drawer is left out, when it wants you to add food, and so on. Fortunately, you can turn the superfluous beeps off, without muting the necessary safety ones, by pressing and holding the “temp/time” and “decrease” buttons for five seconds. This process is explained in the online user manual (though, frustratingly for some, not the physical instructions that come with the air fryer), as well as some other useful things such as how to toggle the temperature display between Fahrenheit and Celsius, and how to replace the filters. But there’s not much guidance for food types/temperatures/times.
Each time you toggle the time and temperature of a program, the air fryer retains the settings. This could be useful – if you always use the same time and temperature for air frying for example – or it could be annoying, so you’ll probably want to learn how to reset the programs. This is done by holding down the respective “Smart Program” button for three seconds. Saving favourites is straightforward enough and they’re easy to save over if you change your mind.
The programmes themselves are fairly flexible. You’ll only get up to an hour’s air frying (adjustable in minute increments) with a top temperature of 205°C, but if you opt for dehydrate this will dip down to 40°C for a staggering 70 hours, meaning you can not only dry fruit and make jerky but create anything a dehydrator might, such as fruit leathers.
The control panel itself, however, is crowded and the icons aren’t always obvious. But on the whole, I found it easy to set with the instructions to hand. I also appreciated that the drawer and cooking are both dishwasher safe: something of a must, given that the window is prone to becoming greasy.
Speaking of grease, you’re unlikely to experience those lingering smells after air frying thanks to its odour filters. After cooking, I didn’t notice the usual greasy pong that can hang around, although this tends to be more the case with larger models and those with drop-down doors.
How well does it cook?
The Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer is equipped with ‘EvenCrisp’ technology for consistent results: in testing, this feature really shone.
While there was no guidance for heating food from frozen, I opted for 200°C for 18 minutes to cook hash browns and the drawer comfortably accommodated eight. After pre-heating, the air fryer beeps to alert you that it’s time to add the food, and there’s another alert during cooking to prompt you to turn the food. However, as this sounds around two-thirds of the way through, the prompt to turn the hash browns only left six minutes to brown the other side to the same degree. Despite this, they emerged perfectly cooked: crisp on outside, soft on inside, and with an even golden-brown colour.
I cooked some homemade chips (peeled, chopped, soaked and dried potato tossed in a small amount of oil) using the same air fryer programme, but at the maximum temperature of 205°C for 22 minutes. The “turn food” alert came with eight minutes left to run, although I had shaken the drawer several times prior to this. After cooking, the chips were perfect, with an even level of browning and no pale pieces. They were crispy at the ends and thoroughly cooked.
There’s no roast programme on the Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer, but the Bake setting can be toggled to suit. I used this to cook a 1.5kg chicken for the programme’s maximum duration of one hour, with its default temperature of 176°C adjusted to 190°C. It was a snug fit – the drawer suits a smaller bird better – but the resulting chicken was well roasted. The juices were clear, the meat was thoroughly cooked through with no pink left, and the skin was golden and crisp.
Should you buy the Instant Pot Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer?
It might be on the smaller side, but the Instant Pot Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer puts in a big performance. As well as multiple handy features and good capacity, it delivered near-faultless results during testing. For solo households, couples, small families, and those keen to try air frying, it’s an excellent value buy.
It’s less suitable for larger families, or those who like the flexibility of two drawers. For more capacity, an air fryer such as Ninja’s Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer or Instant Pot’s Vortex Plus Dual Drawer might be a better fit.
However, if your wishlist includes making tasty midweek meals without being a worktop hog, Instant Pot’s Vortex Compact 5L Air Fryer is ideal for whipping up those crispy, crunchy creations.
