Utilization of egg white solids to improve the texture and cooking quality of cooked and frozen pasta

Frozen cooked pasta meals are offered to meet the increasing demand for high-quality pasta products with ready-to-eat convenience. However, textural changes during freezing and after thawing may consequently modify pasta quality, which requires strategies to minimize texture deterioration. Two egg white powders (EWP), namely, P110 and M200 from Henningsen Foods, Inc. were incorporated at different levels (0, 3 and 5 g/100 g semolina flour) into cooked and frozen wheat semolina pasta to improve their texture and cooking quality. The water absorption of pasta was greatly improved, while the cooking loss was significantly reduced by EWP. The negative effect of freezing and reheating processes on the pasta texture could be significantly minimized by EWP, especially M200 at 3 g/100 g semolina flour. The dynamic rheology on pasta dough and total sulfhydryl and disulfide in two egg white solutions were measured. It can be seen that M200 could form a stronger gel-like structure than P110, which may contribute to significant free sulfhydryl/disulfide exchange with gluten. It could be seen that the findings in this work demonstrated the potential of using EWP especially M200 to improve fresh and frozen pasta texture and quality.