In the present work, an effluent-free novel method including cyclic vacuum steam pulsed blanching (VSPB) pretreatment and non-water infrared refractance window drying (non-water IR-RWD) was employed to explore its effect on enzyme inactivation, drying behavior, quality and functional properties of dried Malabar spinach. The highest inactivation of peroxidase (90.23 %) and polyphenol oxidase (94.58 %) was observed in the 4th cycle of the VSPB pretreatment. With the increase in VSPB cycles from 1 to 5, the drying time was significantly reduced by 27.27 % to 54.54 % compared to the untreated sample. The color change values (ΔE) of VSPB pretreated non-water IR-RWD samples varied from 7.37 to 8.03. The findings in the current work indicated that vacuum-steam pulsed blanching combined with a non-water IR-RWD process is a promising technique for Malabar spinach powder production.
Keywords: Basella alba; Blanching; Drying; Green leafy vegetables; Preservation.
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