Low-fat instant noodles production and determination of its technological properties

Demand for the foods ready-to-eat is increasing due to reasons such as increase in urbanization rate, busyness of working life and lack of time. Ready-to-eat noodles are one of these foods and their consumption is increasing worldwide. Instant noodles in the market are produced by roll pressure stretching method and dried by frying process in deep oil. These noodles have a very high fat content. Therefore, they are susceptible to oxidation and high calorie products. In this study, it is aimed to produce instant noodles with lower fat content and similar quality characteristics in the market by using hot extrusion technique and drying process with hot air flow. Mixing, kneading, cooking and shaping with corotating-twin screw extruder were performed by using less production. Before extrusion baking, the raw materials prepared with the formulation determined by preliminary trials were preheated in the heat jacket preconditioner (65ºC) with mixer wheels. Response surface method was used to correlate between the physical properties and process variables such as feed moisture content, barrel temperature and screw speed. The experiments were carried out at a constant feed rate (56 g/min), at feed moisture of 38, 40, 42%, screw speed of 80, 100, 120 dev/dak and barrel temperature of 75, 80, 85°C. The cooking time, cooking loss, water absorption rate, color values, textural properties, expansion rate, bulk density, water absorption index and water solubility index values of the noodles were determined. As a result, it was determined that the best quality noodles were obtained with 40% feed moisture at 81°C barrel temperature and 105 dev/dak screw speed. In the second phase of the study, the optimized noodles' composition, cooking properties, color and texture values, gelatinization properties and sensory properties were determined. The results of the analysis showed that the products with similar gelatinization and quality characteristics in the market and lower fat content (0.21% ± 0.02% dry based) were obtained.