Products featuring plant-based proteins continue to pop up on grocery shelves everywhere – from cashew-based, non-dairy cheese to a plethora of plant-based beverages to jackfruit jerky and much more. The market for plant-based food products is growing and the Prairie Research Kitchen is at the pulse of new innovations.

The Prairies are home to an abundance of pulses – creating a rich opportunity for research centred on new ingredient applications and product developments. Over the past two years, the Prairie Research Kitchen, in collaboration with local and national partners, has continued to pave the way for pulses as the star ingredient in plant-based food products.

The Prairie Research Kitchen (PRK) collaborated with the University of Manitoba’s Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, as well as the ARD-Food Development Centre (ARD-FDC) – in partnership with funding from the Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers (MPSG), Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) and Ag Action Manitoba – to research new, innovative applications for Prairie plant proteins, including a variety of pulses, soybeans, and hemp.

The primary goal of the research project, entitled: Development of value-added food platform technologies using plant-based protein sources including bean, soy and hemp (The Prairie Plant Protein Project), was to discover novel plant-protein sources that function as protein extenders or replacers.

Project objectives also included fostering partnerships to integrate applied and culinary research into Manitoba’s research network; demonstrating new plant-based protein options for Canadian consumers, sourced from Manitoba and throughout the country; and helping increase and diversify the range of foods Canadians eat, highlighting the versatility of plant-protein sources.

The first phase of the Prairie Plant Protein Project involved assessing the macro-nutrients, specifically the proteins present, at the University of Manitoba’s Food and Human Nutritional Sciences lab. Outcomes indicated that fava beans had a good profile for making tofu, which helped shape the focus on the protein blends developed throughout the course of the project.

Next, researchers at ARD-FDC extracted the proteins from the Prairie pulses, coagulating them to form curds. The curds were then formed into tofu-like blocks. The intent for the new-style, or “nouveau tofu” was to incorporate into various food product applications to replace animal ingredients, or to complement and/or increase nutritional value.

The novel plant protein sources were tested to determine their unique nutritional profiles, with the end goal of combining amino acids from pulses, soybeans, and hemp to create complete protein sources.

Testing was completed to validate the increase in nutritional profiles of combining plant-protein sources, for example, soy-hemp tofu.

After developing several varieties of nouveau tofu, including a new take on traditional soy tofu, Prairie Research Kitchen’s chefs transformed the Prairie plant protein sources into food applications.

The culmination of research and culinary art comes together in a cookbook, Pulse of the Prairies: A Culinary Celebration of Manitoba’s Plant Proteins. Throughout the cookbook’s pages, you’ll see recipes such as Smoky Red Pepper Non-Dairy Cheese made from fava hemp tofu and Tofu Taquitos (see recipe below) made from dehydrated and reconstituted fava hemp soy tofu. In addition to nouveau tofu, the cookbook also features recipes made from navy bean plant-based milk and okara, the starchy by-product of coagulating the plant proteins into curds.

The Pulse of the Prairies cookbook highlights the exceptional nature of resources, crops, and food ingredients combined with the skills and expertise of our province’s research community, demonstrating exciting opportunities for Manitoba plant proteins. Overall, the project helped build platforms for knowledge and technology to showcase how plant-based protein can be used in food systems in Manitoba, nation-wide, and beyond. Manitoba pulses are functional ingredients that can be used to meet growing consumer trends – our Manitoba research network and the Prairie Research Kitchen can help businesses apply and integrate plant-based proteins.

– Heather Hill, Research Manager, Prairie Research Kitchen

To request a copy of The Pulse of the Prairies: A Culinary Celebration of Manitoba’s Plant Proteins cookbook please contact the Prairie Research Kitchen.