Effect of microwave‐vacuum drying on the physicochemical properties of a functional tomato snack bar

Abstract BACKGROUND Tomato is an indispensable ingredient of the Mediterranean diet. Reformulation of traditional Mediterranean products to increase the adherence of consumers is becoming popular. In this study, a tomato snack bar enriched with olive powder and pea protein was developed by using microwave‐vacuum drying. Formulations also included tomato powder (TP) and low‐methoxylated pectin (LMP) as a structuring agent. RESULTS The moisture content of microwave‐vacuum‐dried samples varied in the range 13.6–19.8% and water activity ( a w ) values were ~0.6. LMP and TP concentrations affected the color of microwave‐vacuum‐dried samples. However, the color mainly changed in conventionally dried samples due to browning. In microwave‐vacuum‐dried samples, lycopene content decreased with increasing LMP, but increased with increasing TP. Textural properties of microwave‐vacuum‐dried snack bars increased with increasing LMP and TP. CONCLUSION Both texture and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results indicated that there was a network formation due to the contribution of protein and pectin; however, the type of interaction was highly dependent on the drying mechanism. Nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry data showed that microwave‐vacuum‐dried samples had a more uniform water distribution. Besides its time and energy efficiency, microwave‐vacuum drying improved the color and textural properties of tomato snack bars compared to conventionally dried ones. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.