Development of an Expanded Snack of Rice Starch Enriched with Amaranth by Extrusion Process

This study aimed to obtain a second-generation snack by extrusion from the by-product of rice milling enriched with amaranth. The raw material used was amaranth flour (AF), rice starch (NS) and modified rice starch (MS), which were evaluated by the analysis of substitution degree (SD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), viscosity (RVA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The snacks were expanded by extrusion and microwave oven, as a reference method. The samples were evaluated in hardness (D), expansion index (EI), apparent density (DAP), and protein content (P). Afterward, the optimized samples were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and resistant starch (RS). During the thermal characterization, a clear trend in the decrement in gelatinization temperatures was observed (78.35 to 63.90 °C in NS and MS respectively). The curves obtained in RVA analyses showed typical behavior of native (6.35 Pa.s) and extruded starches (2.88 Pa.s), with a significant decrease in viscosity peak. Through the analysis of FT-IR, the introduction of the functional acetyl group (stretching at a wavelength of 1735 cm(−1)) was corroborated. Snack samples results showed a maximum hardness in MS, with a value of 121 N, and the NS (100%) presented the highest EI value (1.41). The lowest DAP values were obtained for the MS (0.48 g/cm(3), 100%) and AF (0.49 g/cm(3), 100%) samples. P increased to a higher concentration of AF. In the optimum formulation, the SEM image showed that the expanded microwave sample increased the porosity and obtained an RS value of 8.2%. The formulation obtained in the present study presents high characteristics to be used in the development of a healthy snack.