Empowering plant-based meat with soybean by-products: Resource utilization, processing modification, and future...

Soybean processing yields substantial by-products, including hulls, okara, meal, soy whey, and phospholipids, which are rich in protein, dietary fiber, and bioactive compounds but are often underutilized, resulting in resource waste and nutrient loss. Meanwhile, the plant-based meat industry is rapidly expanding. This review systematically summarizes the compositional characteristics, functional properties, and application potential of soybean by-products in plant-based meat. First, it highlights their contributions to nutritional quality, texture, and specific functionalities. Second, it reviews various modification strategies-including physical methods (extrusion, ultrasound, high pressure, microwave, cold plasma, steam explosion, and cavitation jet), chemical treatments, enzymatic modification, and microbial fermentation-and their effects on protein solubility, emulsification, fiber structure, water-holding capacity, texture, and sensory properties. Finally, it discusses technical challenges in practical applications and suggests future directions. Soybean by-products can reduce production costs while enhancing nutritional value, texture, and functionality. Biological modifications, such as enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation, further improve antioxidant capacity and optimize nutritional profiles. However, the diversity and compositional variability of these by-products pose challenges for process uniformity, controllability, and industrial-scale application, emphasizing the need for efficient, scalable, and predictable functionalization strategies.