Food Science and Agriculture: Research Highlights Vol. 8

Pseudocereals can complement conventional cereals by improving the nutritional quality of foods. Amaranth is a pseudocereal with a bland taste, ease of cooking, and comparatively high contents of protein, fat, fibre, energy, and minerals; however, it remains underutilized and consumed in relatively few locations. This study aimed to develop protein-enriched noodles by substituting wheat flour with amaranth seed flour and to evaluate the sensory and nutritional characteristics of the resulting products. Amaranth seed flour was incorporated at 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, and 70%. Sensory evaluation was conducted using a nine-point hedonic scale, and the proximate and mineral compositions of the control and selected flour mixture were assessed. Among the enriched formulations, noodles containing 50% amaranth seed flour received the highest overall acceptability score (7.70 ± 0.10), whereas the 70% formulation received the lowest score (6.67 ± 0.25). The 50% formulation showed the most favourable sensory characteristics among the fortified treatments. Crude protein increased from 12.07 g in the control to 13.22 g in the flour mixture. The enriched flour mixture also showed higher crude fat, ash, fibre, calcium, iron, and phosphorus contents, although carbohydrate and energy values were lower than those of the control. These findings indicate that amaranth seed flour can be incorporated into noodles to improve nutritional quality while retaining acceptable sensory properties.