Vacuum Frying: A Promising Technique to Deliver Nutritive Snack Foods

The ubiquitous presence of fried foods in our diet necessitates the upgradation of techniques to override the ill effects of conventional frying. Vacuum frying, employing frying at low pressure and temperature has recently attracted research due to its excellent food frying capabilities with minimal damage to nutritional as well as sensorial quality. The objective of this review paper is to highlight the basics of vacuum frying technology, provide information about quality of vacuum fried products, parameters affecting the frying process, and interventions to improve the products quality. Prospects of vacuum frying technology to develop products with lower oil content using certain pre-treatments to foods such as partial drying, freezing, hydrocolloids etc. are included. With proper deployment and overcoming of the research gaps, vacuum frying technology can be used effectively as a food processing technique both in small as well as large-scale production industries.