Development and evaluation of chicken nuggets with partial replacement of meat and fat by pea fi bre Desenvolvimento e avaliação de nuggets de frango com substituição parcial de carne e gordura por fi bra de ervilha

Summary The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a chicken nugget formulation with partial substitution of the meat or fat by pea fibre. Three formulations were developed: Control (C) – commercial formulation, Fibre Less Meat (FLM) – reduction of 10% of meat and addition of 2% of pea fi bre and Fibre Less Fat (FLF) – reduction of 10% of fat and addition of 2% pea fi bre. The products were characterized for their pH value, instrumental colour, texture, cooking loss (frying), proximate composition, and sensory properties (acceptance test). The control treatment presented lower (p 0.05) amongst the treatments. The texture analysis showed no signifi cant differences amongst the treatments for elasticity and cohesiveness, although the FLF batch was fi rmer than the others (p 0.05) amongst the three treatments for aroma, texture, fl avour or overall acceptability. One can conclude that it is possible to partially replace meat and fat by pea fi bre in chicken nuggets, without compromising most of the physicochemical characteristics and without altering the sensory acceptance.