Trends in Development of Dried Vegetable Products as Snacks

Diverse types of vegetable snacks made using different drying methods are becoming increasingly commercially important for the food processing industry worldwide because they are also recognized as healthy for human consumption. Here we consider four aspects of drying snacks: unit operations currently used in the industry, novel or emerging methods with nontraditional means, combined (or hybrid) drying methods, and the quality changes during storage. Each drying method has its own advantages and limitations. Hybrid drying techniques are being developed to maximize the benefits of different drying techniques to produce better quality vegetable snacks that are attractive to the consumer. The merits and limitations of more than 10 drying techniques used for making dried vegetable snacks are discussed. Moreover, several new vegetables snacks dried using new drying methods are presented and discussed. A comprehensive review of the recent progress in production of dried vegetable snacks is presented and recommendations are made for future research.