Development of noodles from new Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) varieties flour

Abstract

Sorghum is one of the common staple foods in Africa. Minimal value addition has been done to sorghum despite it being considered a health food due to its nutritional composition. This study aimed to utilize sorghum in producing acceptable and nutritious instant noodles. Three types of noodles were developed from three sorghum varieties i.e. NASARRI M060, NASARRI MS001, and NASARRI M003. The effect of sorghum varieties and other ingredients (corn starch, xanthan, glyceryl, CMC) on noodle quality was determined. The ingredients were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Cooking loss and moisture content of noodles increased significantly (p < 0.05) from 1.6% to 5.2% and 5.8% to 6.3% respectively. There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the mean scores for the appearance of noodles and overall acceptability but no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the mean scores for taste, aftertaste, and texture of noodles. NASARRI M060 (red sorghum variety) was the best desired sorghum variety in making noodles because it had a low cooking loss, low cooking time, high water absorption capacity, texture, and overall acceptability than other varieties. Starch in quadratic form affected positively and significantly (p < 0.01) the cooking loss. Xanthan in linear form (p < 0.01) and CMC in quadratic form (p < 0.05) affected positively and significantly water absorption capacity. Starch in quadratic form and xanthan (p < 0.01) and glyceryl and CMC (p < 0.1) affected positively and significantly the texture. Xanthan and starch in quadratic form (p < 0.01) and glyceryl and CMC (p < 0.05) affected positively and significantly overall acceptability scores. The predicted values for cooking time, cooking loss, water absorption capacity, moisture content, and overall acceptability were 3 min, 2.09 %, 179.9%, 7.6%, and 6.9, respectively. To confirm the validity of the model, the experiment was conducted at optimum values of processing variables and obtained responses were then going through proximate analysis to know their nutritional value. The optimized noodles using 69.46 g of starch, 16.48 g of xanthan, 10.19 g of glyceryl and 10 g of CMC had a higher amount of crude protein (21.58%), moisture (6.04%), dietary fiber (5.96%), starch (37.35), ash content (4.847%), crude fat (14.57%), carbohydrate (34.66 g/100 g), Iron (12.17 mg/100 g) and Magnesium (10.89 mg/100 g than other formulation. Having an equally acceptable noodle with a better nutritional value can be prepared by incorporating sorghum (NASARRI M060) with ingredients at different levels of optimization.