Healthier fried food : Ingredion innovations on high protein-fry battter
ALTERNATIVE PROTEINSSUSTAINABILITY
Traditional fry batters have long struggled to achieve the perfect combination of texture and functionality, particularly for high-moisture foods like sweet potatoes, shrimp, and fish. Standard coatings, often flour- and starch-based, fall short in delivering consistent crispness, especially after freezing and reheating. Additionally, these batters provide little nutritional value, leaving manufacturers and consumers seeking healthier and more effective alternatives.
Recognizing this gap, Corn Products Development (owned by Ingredion). has filed a patent application on fry batter composition that tackle these limitations. By incorporating legume protein isolates—such as pea, lentil, and fava bean proteins—into their formulation, the company has created a coating that enhances crispness, boosts nutritional value, and performs reliably across various cooking and storage methods.
A High-Protein Solution for Better Results
This new fry batter addresses the limitations of traditional coatings with its dry solids composition. The inclusion of legume protein isolates replaces a portion of starch in the mix, resulting in a batter that adheres better to high-moisture foods and maintains its crispness after frying, baking, freezing, or reheating. Pea protein isolate, in particular, has proven highly effective, delivering a crisp texture unmatched by standard batters.
The batter composition also includes a specialized starch mix featuring thermally inhibited starch, high-amylose corn starch (with over 50% amylose content), tapioca starch, and rice flour. These starches provide the structural integrity necessary for the batter to withstand the challenges posed by freezing and moisture retention, ensuring consistent results for both commercial and home use.
Why This Innovation Matters
The new fry batter solves multiple pain points in food preparation and manufacturing:
Enhanced Crispness for High-Moisture Foods: Foods like sweet potatoes and shrimp often become soggy with traditional batters. This innovative formula ensures they remain crisp, even when reheated from frozen.
Improved Nutrition: Legume proteins elevate the protein content of coated foods, turning traditionally low-protein products into more nutritious options.
Versatile Cooking Applications: The batter performs well across frying, baking, freezing, and reheating, maintaining its texture and flavor.
Gluten-Free and Consumer-Friendly: By excluding wheat flour, the batter caters to gluten-intolerant consumers and aligns with modern dietary trends.
Applications Across the Food Industry
This fry batter is ideal for high-moisture foods like sweet potatoes, shrimp, fish, and vegetables. Its versatility extends to cheese products, meats, and plant-based foods, ensuring consistent crispness regardless of the substrate. For manufacturers, the batter supports partially or fully cooked products, allowing for easy integration into frozen food lines or ready-to-eat offerings.
Sustainability and Market Potential
The inclusion of legume proteins not only enhances nutrition but also supports sustainable agricultural practices. Legumes are environmentally friendly crops that require fewer resources to produce, making them an excellent alternative to animal-derived or chemically modified ingredients. Interstingly, their patent mentions the usage of Novation 3600 Tapioca Starch offered by Ingredion along with pea protein isolate for this product. Therefore, we could see the combination of these two ingredients being used by Ingredion as a new batter ingredient for fried foods.