Effect of rice, chickpea flour, and mango peel powder on functional, nutritional, structural, and sensory characteristics of gluten-free pasta

The present work investigated the effect of rice, chickpea flour, mango peel powder, and guar gum addition on nutritional and functional properties of gluten-free pasta. Experiments were conducted to formulate protein-fortified gluten-free pasta using rice and chickpea flour at different proportions (90:10, 80:20, and 70:30) as base flour ingredients. This mixture was incorporated with mango peel powder to enhance the phytonutrients, and guar gum as a binding agent. The three best pasta samples were selected based on the cooking qualities, colour, and overall acceptability of 27 formulations. The optimised proportions of ingredients were estimated to be 80:20 of base flour and mango peel powder, and guar gum to be 10 and 4.5% of base flour. The optimised sample was found to possess 11.36 ± 0.42% protein content, 1.04 ± 0.01% ash content, 154.17 ± 2.42 mg GAE/100 g total phenolic content, 72.53 ± 0.84% radical scavenging activity, and a sensory score of 8.33 ± 0.65 as overall acceptability. The microstructural and FTIR analyses of the novel pasta exhibited a composite starch-protein matrix due to the incorporation of mango peel powder. Therefore, this novel pasta with low-cost ingredients could be commercially viable, and used as a dietetic alternative for people with celiac disease.