The demands of rice products have been steadily increasing because of their non-allergenic-functionalities. However, the use of rice flour in the gluten-free food industry has been still limited due to undesirable quality characteristics derived from the weak structural network by the lack of gluten. Therefore, there is a need to search for new approaches to enhance the structural network of gluten-free foods. In this study, zein, protein derived from corn, was applied to rice noodles as a structural network provider for sheeting and the rheological and structural properties of the rice noodles were investigated depending on the particle size of rice flour. The starch damage of the rice flours increased with decreasing particle size. The zein-rice flours with smaller particle size exhibited greater water hydration properties and pasting parameters that contributed to the increased elastic characteristics. The use of zein positively contributed to the formation of sheeted rice dough that could be successfully slit into noodle strips. The zein-rice noodles with medium particle size (100–150 mesh) had the highest breaking stress and hardness values that were correlated to the lowest cooking loss. This study thus provides a new opportunity for food industry to improve the qualities of gluten-free rice noodles by controlling particle size.

• Myeongseon Kim(Department of Food Science & Biotechnology and Carbohydrate Bioproduct Research Center, Sejong University, Seoul, Korea)
• Im Kyung Oh(Department of Food Science & Biotechnology and Carbohydrate Bioproduct Research Center, Sejong University, Seoul, Korea)
• Suyong Lee(Department of Food Science & Biotechnology and Carbohydrate Bioproduct Research Center, Sejong University, Seoul, Korea)