Condiments are necessary to improve the flavor of foods and are a major source of salt intake for people. Excess salt intake can be a health risk, but reducing salt can reduce the umami and taste of foods, thus reducing product quality. This paper reviews the technical strategies for salt reduction while ensuring saltiness and umami as well as their harmony. The salt reduction strategies include reducing the amount of salt, using salt substitutes and enhancing saltiness perception. The umami enhancement strategies include adding yeast extracts, umami peptides, umami amino acids and peptide derivatives. Besides, salt reduction and umami enhancement can be achieved by using lactic acid bacteria, Maillard reaction intermediates, flavor enhancers and taste-active peptides. The application of the salt reduction and umami enhancement strategies will promote the development of the condiment industry, but these strategies have the problems of insufficient basic research, few practical applications, narrow application scope and high production cost. At present, it is difficult to solve these problems. In this paper, the basic principles and characteristics of the strategies for salt reduction and umami enhancement in condiments and the current problems existing in this field of research are reviewed in detail. Future development directions are put forward in order to provide a reference for research on salt reduction and umami enhancement of condiments.

Fermented kidney bean milk made from germinated kidney bean was prepared with six strains of lactic acid bacteria producing γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) at high yield separately. Sensory evaluation, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography-olfactometry (GC-O) coupled with odor activity value (OAV) analysis were employed to explore the effect of different lactic acid bacteria on the flavor of fermented kidney bean milk. The results showed that a total of 17 volatile flavor compounds were identified in the six fermented kidney bean milk samples, among which, hexanol, benzaldehyde, eugenol, 4-vinyl-2-methoxyphenol, 2-ethylhexyl salicylate, and benzoic acid were identified as key aroma compounds. The sensory evaluation results indicated that lactic acid bacteria fermentation could enhance the sour, fermented, beany, and sweet aromas of fermented kidney bean milk, while significantly reducing the beany odor. Among the six strains, kidney bean milk fermented with Pediococcus pentosaceus Z-6-2 possessed the highest GABA content (225.50 mg/L) and the best flavor, offering significant potential for further development. This study provides valuable strain resources for the development of fermented kidney bean milk beverage with lactic acid bacteria.