Influence of drying methods on the characteristics of a vegetable paste formulated by linear programming maximizing antioxidant activity

•A vegetable paste was formulated through linear programming by maximizing the antioxidant activity.•The vegetables selected among the raw materials showed antioxidant activity around of 81%.•The dried product in spouted bed showed higher quality than the product in tray drying.•The paste formulated by linear programming dried in spouted bed provided a good quality product.

The linear programming is a successful method that can be applied in foods formulation. A vegetable paste was formulated by this method in order to maximize the antioxidant activity. The optimized paste was dried in spouted bed (80, 90 and 100 °C) and it was compared to the dried product in conventional tray (65 °C). The linear programming was suitable to quantify the selected the raw materials (six vegetables and soybean oil), resulting in a paste with high total antioxidant activity (81.3% inhibition DPPH). The best results were found in spouted bed drying at 100 °C, resulting in a product like a homogeneous powder with smooth surface particles, that presented the total phenolic compounds of 4.9 mgGAE g−1dry matter, the total antioxidant activity of 81.6% inhibition DPPH and the lowest color difference. The dried product in spouted bed showed superior results to the product of tray dryer in relation to its characteristics and bioactive compounds.