Quality improvement of prerigor salted ground chicken breast with basic amino acids at low NaCl level

The pre-rigor salting effect is known to provide superior meat processing quality. Based on the urgent need for low salt meat products, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the pre-rigor salting effect when basic amino acids were introduced at 1% NaCl level. Ground chicken breast meat was salted with NaCl and basic amino acids at 30 min, 60 min and 90 min postmortem for pre-rigor treatments. Compared to the 1% NaCl (w/w) treatment, the introduction of 0.06% basic amino acids (w/w) in the pre-rigor significantly led to an increase in myofibril fragmentation, myofibrillar protein solubility, emulsion activity, storage modulus change rate, gel water-holding capacity and hardness (P < 0.05). Furthermore, smaller and more uniformly sized droplets were produced in emulsion by basic amino acids. Individual basic amino acids had different pre-rigor salting effects, and it was indicated that basic amino acids could play a positive role in the pre-rigor salting effect when NaCl was reduced.