Vegan rice “cheese” with coconut oil and cornstarch could be the next big thing — especially for rice addicts and the rice industry.

A new, dairy-free approach to cheese may be on the way, this time with an ingredient as popular or more popular than cheese itself: rice.

Agricultural researchers at the University of Arkansas argue in a study in Future Foods that proteins extracted from rice grains and their byproducts can help solve one of the main problems with currently available plant-based alternatives: lack of protein.

The work describes the first trials of a vegan “cheese” with around 12% proteinmade from rice proteins combined with coconut oil and cornstarch.

Rice contains several protein fractions, not only in the whole grain, but also in white rice and bran, he explains. Mahfuzur Rahmanco-author of the study, in .

In addition to the nutritional potential, the industry’s wallet thanks you innovation. The husking and grinding process, necessary to transform rice into consumer products, generates large quantities of by-products, such as broken grains and bran, which are not always fully valued.

Take the example of the United States. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the country annually produces 14.3 million tons of rice bran and another 24.8 million tons of broken grains. In total, this would represent about 3.3 million tons of protein with the potential to be integrated into the food market.

To better map these possibilities, Rahman and student Ruslan Mehadi Galib extracted and chemically analyzed proteins from brown rice, grains and bran. The team identified four major molecular components (albumin, globulin, glutelin and prolamin) and tested their application in three variations of a standard vegan “cheese” recipe. The result? An experimental product with significantly higher protein content than many commercial plant-based options.

The researchers also suggest replacing certain oils and eggs in food formulations with this new protein, and they also want to make extraction more sustainable: the trials used hexane, a common solvent in oil extraction, but Rahman is exploring alternatives based on ultrasound waves to achieve the same objective with a much lower environmental impact.

Vegan rice “cheese” with coconut oil and cornstarch could be the next big thing — especially for rice addicts and the rice industry.

A new, dairy-free approach to cheese may be on the way, this time with an ingredient as popular or more popular than cheese itself: rice.

Agricultural researchers at the University of Arkansas argue in a study in Future Foods that proteins extracted from rice grains and their byproducts can help solve one of the main problems with currently available plant-based alternatives: lack of protein.

The work describes the first trials of a vegan “cheese” with around 12% proteinmade from rice proteins combined with coconut oil and cornstarch.

Rice contains several protein fractions, not only in the whole grain, but also in white rice and bran, he explains. Mahfuzur Rahmanco-author of the study, in .

In addition to the nutritional potential, the industry’s wallet thanks you innovation. The husking and grinding process, necessary to transform rice into consumer products, generates large quantities of by-products, such as broken grains and bran, which are not always fully valued.

Take the example of the United States. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the country annually produces 14.3 million tons of rice bran and another 24.8 million tons of broken grains. In total, this would represent about 3.3 million tons of protein with the potential to be integrated into the food market.

To better map these possibilities, Rahman and student Ruslan Mehadi Galib extracted and chemically analyzed proteins from brown rice, grains and bran. The team identified four major molecular components (albumin, globulin, glutelin and prolamin) and tested their application in three variations of a standard vegan “cheese” recipe. The result? An experimental product with significantly higher protein content than many commercial plant-based options.

The researchers also suggest replacing certain oils and eggs in food formulations with this new protein, and they also want to make extraction more sustainable: the trials used hexane, a common solvent in oil extraction, but Rahman is exploring alternatives based on ultrasound waves to achieve the same objective with a much lower environmental impact.