Microbiological and physicochemical properties of bean, lentil, and chickpea kefirs as plant-based dairy alternatives

Abstract This study investigated the physicochemical and microbiological properties of legume (lentil, chickpea, and bean)-based kefirs compared to cow’s milk kefir over 30 days of storage. Legume milks contained higher protein (3.35–3.87 g/100 g) and carbohydrate (5.53–6.48 g/100 g) contents but lower fat (0.41–1.63 g/100 g) and energy (43.00–50.15 kcal/100 g) values than cow’s milk. Regarding organic acid profiles, citric acid was the most concentrated in legume milks, while lactic acid became the dominant organic acid in all resulting kefirs. While the pH of dairy kefir dropped during storage, legume-based kefirs showed a pH increase. This rise was accompanied by higher counts of total aerobic mesophilic bacteria, lactococci, lactobacilli, acetic acid bacteria and yeast between days 15 and 30. At the end of the 30-day storage period, microbial counts in all legume-based kefirs remained significantly higher (ranging from 6.22 to 9.97 log CFU/g) than those in cow’s milk kefir (ranging from 4.48 to 8.82 log CFU/g), with lentil-based kefir showing the highest viability. The observed high survival could be attributed to the natural carbohydrate composition and the presence of potential prebiotic oligosaccharides in lentils. All kefirs showed non-Newtonian pseudoplastic flow behavior ( n < 1). Legume-based kefirs, especially the bean-based kefir, had higher viscosity (295.3–961.8 mPa s), consistency coefficient (3.4–9.4 Pa s n ), and thixotropy (1306.7–3062.2 Pa s − 1 ) values than cow’s milk kefir. These findings suggest that legume milks are promising substrates for developing plant-based kefir with high nutritional and microbiological quality.