Water soaking improves pizza bake properties of fat-free mozzarella cheese shreds

Fat-free mozzarella is becoming increasingly popular due to its nutritional advantages, offering a low-calorie and low-fat alternative while still delivering essential nutrients. However, its drawbacks such as poor melting characteristics, excessive browning, and a rubbery texture during baking limit consumer satisfaction and market growth. Our previous research showed that soaking fat-free mozzarella shreds in water enhanced their performance during pizza baking. Building on this, our current research examines the effects of water soaking on frozen-thawed fat-free mozzarella shreds in pizza applications, as well as its baking performance in leftover pizza that has been refrigerated and later reheated in a microwave. Also, our earlier study used visual assessments method for assessing cheese melting, and now to get more objective assessment we used rheometer-based method. Soaked fat-free mozzarella was compared with a fat-free control (negative control) and low-moisture part-skim mozzarella (positive control). The results showed that soaking improved the pizza baking performance of fat-free mozzarella, and this enhancement remained unaffected by freeze-thaw cycles and microwave reheating conditions that simulate typical leftover pizza consumption scenarios. Rheological melt test analysis revealed that soaked fat-free mozzarella had the lowest melting temperature among the samples. Additionally, after cooling and reheating, it exhibited a predominantly flowable-viscous behavior (higher loss modulus, G''), unlike the solid-like behavior (higher storage modulus, G') seen in both control samples. Overall, the findings indicate that hydrating fat-free mozzarella shreds through water soaking lowers their melting point and enhances pizza baking performance benefits that remain stable even after freeze-thaw cycles and microwave reheating, simulating typical leftover pizza consumption conditions.