Valorization of Cocoa (<i>Theobroma cacao</i>) Bean Shell and Tigernuts (<i>Cyperus esculentus</i>) as Partial Wheat‐Flour Replacer in Cookies Formulation: Nutritional and Quality Assessment

ABSTRACT Two key sustainable strategies to ensure food and health security are alternative food sourcing and by‐products valorization. Hence, this study aimed at producing cookies with potential blood‐glucose reducing properties by a partial replacement of wheat flour (W) with tigernuts (T) and pre‐treated cocoa bean shell (C) using optimal mixture design. Quality, nutritional, and organoleptic properties of the products were compared with that of commercial reference sample. Essential macro and micro‐nutrients such as crude protein, fiber, ash contents, and minerals were significantly higher than the reference sample, especially cookies with up to 16% CBS inclusion. Although maintaining lower starch digestibility, these cookies further exhibited better potential health‐benefiting properties such as total phenols, flavonoids, and antioxidant properties and a low glycemic index. Similarly, the formulated snacks showcased high resistant (18.9%–22.3%) and slowly digestible starch (17.5%–23.1%) thus accounting for the reduced predicted glycemic index (&lt; 50.0) (relative to commercial samples &gt; 60%). Regarding safety, the snacks possess permissible level of heavy metals (Pb &lt; 0.05; Cd &lt; 0.02 and Ar &lt; 0.01 mg/kg), which are below regulatory limits. All of the formulations, however, scored above 6.0 on the 9‐point scale for sensory qualities, suggesting a desirable level of consumers acceptability.