Investigating the effect of lattice design on sauce adhesion in 3D printed durum wheat pasta

Pasta has been one of the beloved foods for many years, and recently, attempts have been made in the industry to utilize 3D printing to create various designs of pasta noodles. This study investigated the effect of freeze-dried spinach powder on the quality of pasta dough used for 3D printing while focusing on improving the quality of 3D printing and post-processing characteristics and also the sauce adhesion capacity of pasta dough under various traditional Korean lattice infill patterns. Common durum wheat flour was substituted with 0, 4, 8, 12 and 16 g/54 g freeze-dried spinach powder. As wheat flour was progressively substituted with spinach powder, the rheological behavior of the dough ink changed from a long paste to a short paste. Pasta dough containing 12% spinach powder exhibited good resolution in the printing test while maintaining a stable network structure due to appropriate starch gelatinization with spinach granules after drying and cooking, ultimately resulting in a high-quality product. However, exceeding a certain threshold (16% spinach content) leads to adverse effects. Wanjasal, Guigapsal, and Ttisal muntin units were used as patterns for spinach-containing pasta, and increased sauce viscosity correlated with a greater retention of sauce within pattern holes. By successfully enhancing the nutritional value and printing resolution of durum wheat pasta using spinach powder, this study provides quantitative guidelines for the development of 3D printable pasta.