Background. Egg noodles are a commonly consumed food in Asia and are increasingly eaten around the world. Consumers now have more new requirements concerning the quality and healthiness of products. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the effects of Moringa leaf powder (MLP), konjac glucomannan (KG), and acetylated starch (AS) on the quality of noodles.

Materials and methods. The Box–Behnken design via the response surface methodology was used, and cooking quality, weight increase, and cooking loss were the main responses. Quadratic polynomial equations were established to determine the influence of 3 independent variables (MLP, KG, and AS) on the cooking quality of the studied noodles.

Results. A significance test and analysis of variance results demonstrated that the MLP, KG, and AS contributed significantly to the increase in rehydration rate and reduction of cooking loss. The joint interaction effects of dependent variables were also significant for cooking quality. Increasing the percentage of MLP and AS resulted in an increase in weight increase and cooking loss, while increasing the percentage of KG resulted in an increase in the rehydration rate and a significant reduction in cooking loss. Based on the fitted model for two responses, simultaneous optimization was also carried out. The optimal values were MLP, KG, and MS at 5%, 4.89%, and 3%, respectively, which gave an estimated maximum value for weight increase (83.61%) and a minimum value for cooking loss (3.05%). A scanning electron micrograph of noodles containing these concentrations showed that the continuity of the gluten network was enhanced.

Conclusion. In this study, the parameters of the input variables were optimized to increase the weight of noodles after cooking and reduce the cooking loss, using the response surface methodology. The accuracy of the model has been verified by actual experimental data. The results obtained may provide new insight into the addition of high bioactive compounds available in plants to the formulation of common food products and the development of new food products for the manufacturing industry.

Keywords: Box–Behnken design, fortification, cooking quality, nutrients, noodles