Combined Hot Air, Microwave, and Infrared Drying of Hawthorn Fruit: Effects of Ultrasonic Pretreatment on Drying Time, Energy, Qualitative, and Bioactive Compounds’ Properties

The present study aimed to examine the effect of ultrasonic pretreatment and hot air, microwave–hot-air, infrared–hot air, and freeze-drying on the drying time, specific energy (SE), qualitative properties (i.e., color, shrinkage, and rehydration ratio), and bioactive compounds’ properties (i.e., antioxidant activity, phenolic, and flavonoid contents) of hawthorn fruit. Drying of hawthorn was conducted from 45 min for the ultrasonic + microwave–hot-air drying to 1280 min for the freeze-drying method. The lowest amount of SE was obtained using the ultrasonic-microwave–hot-air drying method, which was 47.57 MJ/kg. The lowest values in color changes (12.25) and shrinkage (17.21%) were recorded for the freeze-drying method, while the highest amounts for these traits were 45.57% and 66.75% in the HA drying, respectively. In general, the use of different drying methods reduces the antioxidant capacity (AC), total phenolic content (TPC), and total flavonoid content (TFC) during processing compared to fresh samples. The highest values for AC, TPC, TFC, and the rehydration ratio were 30.69%, 73.07 mg-GAE/gdw, 65.93 mg-QE/gdw, and 2.02 for the freeze-drying method, respectively.