Traditional nang, a wheat flour-based flatbread fermented and baked at high temperature, has high oil/sodium content that may raise long-term disease risks if staple-consumed. This study aimed to reduce its salt content, improve quality, and optimize raw material ratios by adding chickpea flour, potassium chloride, gluten powder, inulin, and L-lysine, using texture, color, moisture, sensory evaluation, and orthogonal experiments. The results showed that nang moisture content first increased then decreased with additions of chickpea flour, oil, wheat gluten and L-lysine; similarly, its total sensory score followed the same trend with varying chickpea flour and water levels. The L 27 (3 5 ) orthogonal experiment optimized the base formula (35% chickpea flour, 9% oil, 52% water, 1.35% yeast, 0.7% salt), while the L 9 (3 4 ) experiment refined the low-sodium formula (2.75% wheat gluten, 4% inulin, 0.2% L-lysine, 30% salt replaced by potassium chloride). This optimized nang had reduced sodium, moderate hardness, golden color and good taste, providing theoretical and technical support for high-value chickpea application in traditional wheat products. • Establish a recipe optimization system for nang. • Optimize the recipe of low-sodium chickpea nang. • Reduce the salt content of nang products.
Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.