Puff drying in the production of gluten-free meatball snacks: Impacts of formulation and pre-drying methods

Abstract

Meat and meat products, which are significant in human nutrition, are consumed with pleasure, as well as their rich essential nutrients, sensory properties, and taste in adequate and balanced nutrition. Within the scope of the study, gluten-free flour alone (20% (w/w)) and vegetable powders (5% (w/w)) were used in the production of meatball snacks using the explosive puff drying (EPD) method. The effects of two different pre-drying processes (hot air drying (HAD) and freeze drying (FD)) on the final product properties were discussed. While using chickpea flour as gluten-free flour; we preferred adding vegetable powders with high fiber and prebiotic content, such as Jerusalem artichoke, and red beetroot powders. The physical and chemical properties of the samples dried by both methods (HAD + EPD and FD + EPD) containing chickpea flour and red beetroot powder were found suitable for consumption as snack products. However, the expansion rate (94.27%), total phenolics content (100.07 µg GAE/g DM), textural hardness value (1053.65 N), textural crispness (24 peak number), and sensory impression (8.4) values of products containing chickpea flour and beet powder dried with FD + EPD dried gave the best results among the groups (p < 0.05). In addition, the sensory analysis showed that this sample was preferable to the other samples. The pre-drying processes we applied, and the moisture content of pre-dried samples had a significant effect on puffed dried product quality. Oil losses, shrinkage, and the formation of cracks with the HAD method were observed. It was determined that FD as a pre-drying method before EPD minimized the nutrient losses (total protein content, total fat content, total phenolics content) and preserved the physical (ΔE < 15) properties of the snack samples.