How to achieve sodium salt reduction in bean-based fermented foods: strategies, application cases and future...

High sodium salt concentration is crucial for successful fermentation and flavor development in bean-based fermented foods (BBFFs), yet excessive sodium intake poses health risks. As healthy diet awareness grows, reducing sodium salt in BBFFs is increasingly demanded but highly challenging due to the critical role of sodium salt reduction in BBFFs production. To resolve this challenge, researchers and manufacturers have developed various methods, however they showed differentiated results due to the diversity of BBFFs. This review briefly elaborated the problems of sodium salt reduction in BBFFs industry at the microbiological, flavor and metabolic aspects. Moreover, this review emphasized the characteristics and application effect of sodium salt reduction methods which were classified into two principles (less sodium salt in and more sodium salt out). Finally, four future prospects for sodium salt reduction in BBFFs industry are outlooked. This review provides guidance for the production low-salt BBFFs with preferred flavor and quality.