Comparative study of cooking quality, microstructure, and textural and sensory properties between fresh wheat noodles prepared using sodium chloride and salt substitutes

The effects of sodium chloride (NaCl) and commercial salt substitutes (SS) on cooking qualities, microstructure, textural and sensory properties of fresh wheat noodles were studied. NaCl and four types of SS were added at 1, 4 and 8% of flour weight. White salted noodles (WSN) had shorter optimum cooking time than zero-salted noodles (ZSN). Cooking yield of ZSN, WSN-NaCl-1, WSN-NaCl-8, WSN-SS3-1 and WSN-SS3-4 were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than other noodles. Increment of salts resulted in significantly increased (P < 0.05) cooking loss but did not significantly affect (P > 0.05) springiness of noodles. Addition of salts into noodles, except WSN-NaCl-1, WSN-NaCl-8, and WSN-SS2-8 were firmer than ZSN. WSN-SS2 and WSN-SS4 exhibited densest microstructure than ZSN and WSN-NaCl. Ranking test indicated that replacing NaCl with SS2, SS3 and SS4 up to 8% in noodles could retain elasticity of noodles. SS2 and SS4 may be useful to replace NaCl due to better noodles qualities than ZSN and WSN-NaCl.