Spray dried insect protein-polyphenol particles deliver health-relevant value-added food ingredients

•A novel revalorization strategy for insect protein is presented.•Spray dried insect protein-polyphenol particles are rich in phytochemicals.•Spray dried insect protein-polyphenol particles have enhanced functional attributes.•Spray drying microencapsulation is an efficient route to produce insect-derived ingredients. A novel strategy to create value-added insect protein-derived ingredients is presented in this study. Spray dried protein-polyphenol particles were produced using aqueous polyphenol extracts of rosemary (RM) or muscadine grape pomace (MG) complexed with insect protein (IP) alone or blended with pea protein 50:50 (IPP). The spray drying process was evaluated (solids recovery SR and polyphenol retention PR) and the four experimental protein-polyphenol treatments IP–RM, IP-MG, IPP–RM and IPP–MG were characterized regarding their physicochemical, bioactivity, functional, bioaccessibility and thermal stability properties. Higher SR (53.7–53.3%) and PR (53.1–62.5%) were observed for IPP-derived particles (p < 0.05). Particles had water activity in the microbiologically stable range (0.24–0.32) and high protein content (29.5%–38.3%). All particles had low hygroscopicity (68.5 mg GAE/g) was shown for MG-derived particles. Good emulsifying activity (1.85–16.46 m2/g) and emulsifying stability (>60%), foaming capacity (4–57%) and foaming stability (2.0–37.3%) were observed for all insect protein-polyphenol particles. Differently from MG-derived particles, RM-derived treatments showed higher polyphenol bioaccessibility than non-complexed polyphenols (p < 0.05). Overall, our study demonstrates that spray drying microencapsulation is an efficient strategy to produce attractively colored, value-added functional protein-polyphenol ingredients using insect protein. [Display omitted]