Tower Vortex 5-in-1 air fryer review
Air fryers are healthier alternatives to cooking with deep fat fryers. Read our review of the Tower Vortex 5-in-1 air fryer to see how it fared in our tests.
Tower Vortex 2000W 11-litre 5-in-1 digital air fryer oven
Pros: more versatile than a basket fryer, rotisserie function
Cons: can be tricky to clean
Star rating: 3.5/5
You can fit so much into this Tower oven, making it a useful helper in the kitchen. With most models, all food goes into one basket, but with this model, it’s possible to have multiple layers of food cooking at the same time.
As with other ‘health’ fryers, the shelves are basket-like, so any fat or juices will fall to the bottom tray – bear this in mind when stacking ingredients.
Or, you can always use roasting tins, as you would in a conventional oven. We heated pies and a filo pastry dish in enamel tins on top of the trays, and that worked really well.
If you have a fussy family with differing dinner demands, we could see this helping a lot, because of the ability to cook multiple dishes at once. You could, for example, cook a pizza on top, then wedges and goujons on the remaining shelves to keep everyone happy.
When oven space is at a premium – on Christmas Day, for example – this would be a really useful extra appliance, as it could sort out stuffing, pigs in blankets and extra roasties with ease.
With the rotisserie function, this air fryer is better still. There's a timer that can be set up to an hour, so we seasoned a chicken, basted it with olive oil, and left it to spin its way to juicy, crisp perfection. A turkey crown would also work well, as would any other roast. Pork with crackling was a real success, too.
The other air fryer models we tested – with the exception of the Sage Smart Oven – wouldn’t have the capacity to hold a whole chicken, and we’d have had to portion it up and move the pieces around to ensure it cooked evenly. We found that food stuck to the mesh shelves at times, but they were very easy to clean.
As you can imagine, it was a bigger job to clean out the fryer after using the rotisserie function, but with fat collected in the tray at the bottom and the glass door opening wide, it was a bit easier to wipe down any greasy splashes.
Available from:
Tower air fryer specifications
Power: 2000W
Dimensions: 46 x 39 x 38cm
Guarantee: three years
Recipe book: no
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This review was last updated in August 2020. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability, please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.
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