Effect of sous vide processing on physicochemical, ultrastructural, microbial and sensory changes in vacuum packaged chicken sausages

The processing of sous vide chicken sausages was optimized under vacuum packaging condition and cooking at 100? for 30min (SV30), 60min (SV60) and 120min (SV120) and compared with aerobically cooked control at 100? for 30min. Sous vide processing of chicken sausages (SV30) produced higher (p<0.05) cooking yield, Hunterlab a* values and sensory attributes without affecting proximate composition and shear force values relative to control. The sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and scanning electron microscopy results revealed no significant changes in protein quality and emulsion ultra-structure due to SV30 processing relative to control sausages. Sous vide processing of chicken sausages enriched with rosemary diterpene phenols retained the freshness and quality up to 120 days during storage at 4 +/- 1? relative to control sausages that were spoiled on 20th day. Lipid oxidation and microbial growth remained below the spoilage levels for all the SV-processed sausages throughout the storage and addition of rosemary diterpene mixture at 0.02% v/w reduced the microbial growth and improved (p<0.05) the sensory attributes. Our results demonstrate that sous vide processing minimizes lipid oxidation and microbial growth of chicken sausages with improved product quality and shelf-life at 4 +/- 1?.