Gluten‐free pasta fortified with moringa leaves: effect of recipe ratios on quality and structural properties

Summary Pasta has a big publicity worldwide and gone through lots of research to improve its quality. It is a good source of carbohydrates and recently new types of pasta are being good sources of fibres and proteins, too. The objective in this study is to produce highly nutritious pasta with good quality trying to reduce some of Kuwaiti population diseases such as obesity and diabetes. I optimal RSM design was used to make combinations of three ingredients with different ratios (oats, corn, and moringa) and check their effect on proximate composition, textural properties, colour, cooking loss percentage, microstructural properties, and fatty acid profile. Results found that run #2 (10:70:20) (Moringa: Corn: Oats) is the optimum run with 0.63 desirability through having high protein and fibre contents 11.5% and 5.1%, respectively, with low fat and cooking loss percentages (10.3%). The same run also had the highest total unsaturated fatty acids (78%). Both microstructure and the texture affected cooking loss results where more cavities in the microstructure increased cooking loss and harder samples reduced cooking loss.