Pasta from yellow lentils: How process affects starch features and pasta quality

•100% raw yellow lentil flour can be processed into pasta.•Both conventional extrusion and extrusion-cooking led to good quality pasta.•Extrusion-cooking led to pasta with better texture than conventional process.•Extrusion-cooking promoted greater starch gelatinization and reorganization.•The different processes may promote differences in the in vitro starch digestion. The effects of conventional extrusion (CV) and extrusion-cooking (EC) were investigated on 100% yellow lentils (YL). Both the extrusion processes led to pasta with good cooking quality (cooking loss: 7.0–7.1 g/100 g, firmness: 530–608 N), even in overcooking (cooking loss: 7.7–7.9 g/100 g, firmness: 418–513 N). Contrary to what is known for gluten-free cereals, CV is effective in producing pasta from native YL with no need for a pre-gelatinization step. However, pasta from EC showed a higher compression energy (2898 versus 2448 N*mm). In this sample, starch presented a higher degree of gelatinization (75.5 versus 57.6 g/100 g) and lower enthalpy (0.97 versus 1.07 J/g). At the same time, EC promoted a more compact structure that required higher temperature for melting (66.49 versus 63.16 °C) and showing pasting properties (79.1 versus 74.7 °C). Thus, by selecting suitable extrusion conditions it is possible to improve the cooking behavior of 100% pulse pasta.