Processing and Quality Evaluation of Ready-to-Cook (RTC) Dehydrated Vegetables Mixture

Vegetables make up a major portion of the diet for human in various parts of the world, play a momentous ingredient in human nutrition and their postharvest losses range from 40-60% following harvest. Therefore, the development of Ready-to-cook (RTC) dehydrated vegetable mixture is one of the value additions to preserve the nutritional content of the vegetables. Accordingly, a study was conducted to develop a RTC dehydrated vegetable mixture by using five different vegetables such as carrot (Daucus carota), cabbage (Brassica oleracea), eggplant (Solanum melongena), green bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima). The dehydrated RTC vegetable mixtures were prepared to different levels 1.0%, 1.2%, 1.4% and 1.6% (w/w) of pumpkin pulp which served as binding agent while keeping other ingredients as constant. Physico-chemical parameters such as pH, Total soluble solids (TSS), moisture and fiber content were raged between 5.6-5.8, 3.8-5.7?Brix, 20.6-23.9 and 3.86 -6.89 % respectively. The TSS, moisture and fiber contents of formulated RTC dehydrated vegetable mixtures were significantly differed (p