Pasta from yellow lentils: How process affects starch features and pasta quality

Area of Science:

• Food Science and Technology
• Cereal Science
• Legume Processing

Background:

• Developing gluten-free pasta alternatives is crucial for dietary needs.
• Yellow lentils (YL) offer a promising protein and fiber source for pasta production.
• Extrusion processing is a key method for transforming raw ingredients into pasta.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of conventional extrusion (CV) and extrusion-cooking (EC) on 100% yellow lentil (YL) pasta.
• To compare the cooking quality and structural properties of pasta produced by CV and EC.
• To determine the effectiveness of CV for YL pasta without pre-gelatinization.

Main Methods:

• Pasta was produced using 100% yellow lentils via conventional extrusion (CV) and extrusion-cooking (EC).
• Cooking quality was assessed by measuring cooking loss and firmness.
• Structural and thermal properties, including degree of gelatinization, enthalpy, compression energy, and pasting temperature, were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Both CV and EC yielded pasta with good cooking quality, maintaining integrity even under overcooking conditions.
• CV effectively produced pasta from native YL without requiring pre-gelatinization.
• EC resulted in pasta with higher compression energy, greater starch gelatinization, a more compact structure, and higher thermal transition temperatures.

Conclusions:

• Conventional extrusion is a viable method for producing 100% yellow lentil pasta without pre-gelatinization.
• Extrusion-cooking enhances pasta structure and cooking properties, offering superior performance.
• Optimizing extrusion conditions allows for improved cooking behavior in 100% pulse-based pasta.