Effect of Steaming and Microwave Heating on Taste of Clear Soup with Split-Gill Mushroom Powder

Salt is widely overconsumed. Among the strategies used in low-salt foods, the addition of flavor enhancers to improve saltiness perception through an umami taste is a viable and promising technique. This study investigated using split-gill mushroom (SGM) powder containing umami taste to increase saltiness in a clear soup for two different heating conditions: steaming under high pressure and microwave heating. According to the E-tongue results, the addition of 0.2–0.8% SGM produced a different taste in the soup compared to the addition of salt, and the addition of 0.2–0.8% SGM yielded a similar taste to the addition of 0.4–0.6% MSG in a plain, clear soup. In flavored soup, SGM at a high concentration had a taste-enhancing impact comparable to 0.4% MSG, whereas SGM at a low concentration had no taste-enhancing effect. The flavored soups containing 0.4 or 0.8% SGM consisted of two umami 5′-nucleotides: adenosine 5′-monophosphate (5′-AMP) and guanosine 5′-monophosphate (5′-GMP); however, inosine 5′-monophosphate (5′-IMP) was not detected. The major umami amino acids were glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and arginine. Microwave heating increased the salinity and total nucleotides and could maintain the umami amino acids, whereas aspartic acid (one of the umami amino acids) was reduced by 8.23% after steaming under high pressure. Thus, after microwave heating and steaming under high pressure, the equivalent umami concentration was reduced by 43.11 and 44.53%, respectively. In conclusion, the addition of SGM and volumetric heating using microwaves could be an alternative method for reducing the amount of salt in soup by increasing the umami taste intensity and salinity.