Defatted chickpea flour (DCF), which is a by-product of chickpea oil extraction industry, is rich in nutrients that are beneficial to human health. In this study, the effects of temperature and DCF variation on the rheological properties, water holding capacity, freeze-thaw stability and microstructure of DCF heat induced gels were investigated. The results showed that the viscoelasticity, frequency dependence, and resistance strength of heat induced gels increased significantly with the increase of temperature and DCF variation. The degree of denaturation and water retention of heat induced gels increased significantly with increased variables within the temperature and variation windows of 75°C to 95°C and 13% to 21%. The CLSM results revealed that variations of both temperature and DCF variation could cause the proteins in the heat induced gels to aggregate gradually and to form protein aggregations. When temperature or variation exceeded certain value (85°C or 17%), the protein aggregations broke up and the protein clusters became smaller and more homogeneous. Therefore, the heat induced gels presented better water holding capacity, viscoelasticity, structural stability and gel property at a temperature of 95°C or a DCF variation of 21% within the present experimental range.

The gel properties of soybean isolate protein (SPI) gels are susceptible to the influence of other components in food products, particularly edible polysaccharides. Therefore, six common edible polysaccharides were selected in this study to investigate their effects on the rheological properties, thermal properties, and microstructure of acid-induced soybean isolate protein self-assembled gels (SPIASG). The experimental results showed that the support capacity and creep recovery of SPIASG with added polysaccharides were higher than those of the control group without added polysaccharides, and the gel with Xanthan gum (XG) was the most effective. The hybrid gel, with added Condensed resin (CR), Xanthan gum (XG), Carrageenan (CA), and CMC formed a stronger network structure. Additionally, compared with SPIASG, the hybrid gel with added edible polysaccharides the water-holding capacity of SPI hybrid gels was relatively improved. In this study, a simple and easy method was obtained to significantly improve the gel properties of SPIASG, analyzed and compared the effectiveness of various polysaccharides to enhance its gel properties, and provided some ideas to improve the gel properties of SPI protein gels.