Enhancing the Quality of Buckwheat Noodles Through the Addition of Wheat Gluten and Wheat Flour.

Common buckwheat and Tartary buckwheat are gluten-free pseudocereals with promising nutritional benefits; however, their poor dough functionality limits commercial noodle applications. This study evaluated six formulations: buckwheat flour with 12% added gluten, and blends consisting of 50% buckwheat (either common or Tartary) with 50% high-gluten wheat flour with an additional 6% or 12% gluten. The dough properties, rheological behaviors, moisture distributions, pasting properties of the flours, as well as the cooking performance and textural attributes of the resulting noodles, were systematically compared. Results showed that adding wheat flour and gluten markedly improved dough stability, particularly for Tartary buckwheat, which initially exhibited very weak structure. All doughs behaved as viscoelastic solids. For common buckwheat blends, the lower gluten level (6%) produced higher G' and G″ than 12% level. Tartary buckwheat blends showed a positive correlation between gluten addition and viscoelastic moduli. Water was predominantly weakly bound, and Tartary buckwheat doughs retained more total bound water than common buckwheat doughs. Tartary buckwheat flours exhibited higher peak, final, and setback viscosities than common buckwheat blends. Tartary buckwheat noodles containing 50% wheat flour and 12% added gluten achieved superior cooking performance and textural attributes. These findings provide a practical strategy for producing high-quality buckwheat noodles.