Factors Influencing Rice Noodles Qualities

Rice noodles have been a staple food since ancient times regardless of the raw materials used, formulations, size strands and shapes. In view of its potential to be marketed as a gluten-free food product, a massive market growth may well occur. In this paper, factors influencing rice-based noodles quality are reviewed. Various efforts have been made starting from the rice grains itself, such as selecting high amylose rice grains, by subjecting the rice grains to ageing, having different milling and fermentation conditions, modifying rice starches physically and/or chemically, blending different starches, adding in gums, emulsifiers, phosphate, etc., to improve the quality of fresh rice noodles. Nevertheless, literature search has shown that work focusing on preserving and extending shelf life of rice noodles, especially the fresh wet type is relatively scarce. This big research gap needs to be filled before rice noodles products are widely distributed.