The Effect of Lentil and Chickpea Flour incorporation on Pasta Quality

The incorporation of legume flours in cereal-based products, such as pasta, is gaining the attention of food technologists and industries. This trend is also gaining popularity among consumers due to legumes’ exceptional nutritional profiles. The aim of the present work was to study the effect of durum wheat semolina enrichment using chickpea and lentil flours on the physicochemical, enzymatic, rheological and sensorial characteristics of produced pasta, with substitution ratios ranging from 5% to 30%. The obtained results showed that pasta prepared with mixed flours had reduced water content of about 9.17 ± 0.01% and 7.2 ± 0.06%, respectively at a 30% replacement rate with lentil and chickpea flours. Moreover, the highest dose of lentil increased protein content of the mixture to reach 15.09 ± 0.4%. As chickpea and lentil flours are gluten free, incorporating them into recipes reduced the overall gluten content. The replacement with chickpea flour reduced the firmness of produced pasta compared to semolina-based pasta. Also, pasta produced with low legume dose recipes showed a better cooking quality profile, with limited cooking losses, low water absorption, and good firmness. Analyses performed on enriched samples showed that the most appropriate doses of legume flours for pasta production in terms of technological, rheological and sensorial properties were 15% and 10%, respectively for chickpea and lentil flours.