Effects of gellan on the quality characteristics of frozen cooked noodles during freeze-thaw cycles

Temperature fluctuations during transportation all the way to consumption can negatively affect the quality of frozen cooked noodles (FCNs). In response, this work investigated whether gellan enhanced the appearance and texture property of FCNs during freeze-thaw cycles. Compared with the control, adding gellan increased the hardness of FCNs and reduced structural damage during freeze-thaw cycles. In addition, changes in FCNs were explained from the perspectives of freeze-thaw stability and rheology, the former of which was determined according to T2 relaxation time, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that adding gellan reduced the percentage of weakly bound water and the relaxation time of FCNs, as well as increased the water-holding capacity of the noodles. MRI pseudo-color maps illustrated that adding gellan stabilized the water gradient in the noodles, and a thermal analysis of FCNs via DSC demonstrated that adding gellan at 0.3% maximized the melting termination temperature. In addition, creep-recovery test results indicated that FCNs compliance increased during freeze-thaw cycles, and the addition of gellan enhanced the zero-shear viscosity and deformation resistance, which explained the texture property change of FCNs.