Summary Aquafaba, the viscous liquid resulting from cooking chickpeas in water is typically discarded. However, this solution is now widely used by the vegan community as an egg replacement that adds texture to food products, such as mayonnaise, pudding, ice cream and baked goods. Sponge cake was prepared with either egg white or aquafaba derived from ten different brands of canned chickpea and the texture and colour were compared. Aquafaba obtained from each chickpea can produced foam which differed in both properties and stability. In addition, aquafaba from some brands provided comparable foam volume and stability to that achieved with egg white. The colour and texture of sponge cake made with either egg white or aquafaba were similar and acceptable, but cakes prepared with aquafaba were less springy, and less cohesive than cake that included egg white. Based on our results, it appears that aquafaba has potential to replace egg white in eggless cake recipes.

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Chickpea and other pulses are commonly sold as canned products packed in a thick solution or a brine. This solution has recently been shown to produce stable foams and emulsions, and can act as a thickener. Recently interest in this product has been enhanced through the internet where it is proposed that this solution, now called aquafaba by a growing community, can be used a replacement for egg and milk protein. As aquafaba is both new and being developed by an internet based community little is known of its composition or properties. Aquafaba was recovered from 10 commercial canned chickpea products and correlations among aquafaba composition, density, viscosity and foaming properties were investigated. Proton NMR was used to characterize aquafaba composition before and after ultrafiltration through membranes with different molecular weight cut offs (MWCOs of 3, 10, or 50 kDa). A protocol for electrophoresis, and peptide mass fingerprinting is also presented. Those methods provided valuable information regarding components responsible for aquafaba functional properties. This information will allow the development of practices to produce standard commercial aquafaba products and may help consumers select products of superior or consistent utility.

Aquafaba (AQ), a viscous by-product solution produced during cooking chickpea or other legumes in water, is increasingly being used as an egg replacement due to its ability to form foams and emulsions. The objectives of our work were to select a chickpea cultivar that produces AQ with superior emulsion properties, and to investigate the impact of chickpea seed physicochemical properties and hydration kinetics on the properties of AQ-based emulsions. AQ from a Kabuli type chickpea cultivar (CDC Leader) had the greatest emulsion capacity (1.10 ± 0.04 m2/g) and stability (71.9 ± 0.8%). There were no correlations observed between AQ emulsion properties and chickpea seed proximate compositions. Meanwhile, AQ emulsion properties were negatively correlated with AQ yield and moisture content, indicating that AQ with higher dry-matter content displayed better emulsion properties. In conclusion, the emulsification properties of aquafaba are greatly influenced by the chickpea genotype, and AQ from the CDC Leader chickpea produced the most stable food oil emulsions.

Canning or boiling pulse seeds in water produces a by-product solution, called “aquafaba”, that can be used as a plant-based emulsifier. One of the major problems facing the commercialization of aquafaba is inconsistency in quality and functionality. In this study, chickpea aquafaba production and drying methods were optimized to produce standardized aquafaba powder. Aquafaba samples, both freeze-dried and spray-dried, were used to make egg-free, vegan mayonnaise. Mayonnaise and analog physicochemical characteristics, microstructure, and stability were tested and compared to mayonnaise prepared using egg yolk. Chickpeas steeped in water at 4 °C for 16 h, followed by cooking at 75 kPa for 30 min at 116 °C, yielded aquafaba that produced the best emulsion qualities. Both lyophilization and spray drying to dehydrate aquafaba resulted in powders that retained their functionality following rehydration. Mayonnaise analogs made with aquafaba powder remained stable for 28 days of storage at 4 °C, although their droplet size was significantly higher than the reference sample made with egg yolk. These results show that aquafaba production can be standardized for optimal emulsion qualities, and dried aquafaba can mimic egg functions in food emulsions and has the potential to produce a wide range of eggless food products.

Graphical abstract

Self‐emulsifiable oils are solutions of surfactants in non‐polar solvents which spontaneously form emulsions when added to water. Measurement of the degree of spontaneity has remained subjective. Accordingly, a method has been devised in which a small volume of the oil solution is injected into a flowing stream of water and carried across an intense beam of parallel light from a helium‐neon laser. Light scattered from the beam by the dispersed oil droplets is collected by means of fibre optics onto an array of silicon photodiodes and the amplified output is integrated as a function of time. By varying the flow rate of the water stream it is possible to estimate the time required for an emulsifying system to come to its equilibrium state of dispersion under the conditions of the experiment, the ‘spontaneity’ of emulsion formation. Under the experimental conditions employed, systems comprising solutions of phosphated nonylphenolethoxylate (PNE) and phosphated fatty alcohol ethoxylate (PFE) in n‐hexane came to equilibrium between 5 and 12 s, depending on the constitution. These times could be approximately correlated with the values for spontaneity estimated by the CPAC dilution test, although this latter test is somewhat subjective. The spontaneity appears to depend on the nature of the material existing within the phase diagram and the anomalous results obtained may be accounted for by the likely presence of a complex formed at the emulsion interface between the PNE, PFE and water during the dispersion process.