The production and consumption of plant-based products, including cheese alternatives, is constantly growing and demanding special attention in food science research. There are significant gaps in product development, as well as a need for assessing the nutritional composition, ingredients, and quality of plant-based cheese alternatives. This research focused on the development of a walnut-based cheese alternative with acceptable nutritious, physical, and sensory properties. Walnut cheese formulations were prepared with walnuts, water, instant yeast, agar-agar, walnut oil, salt, and sugar. Response surface models successfully predicted the optimal ingredients levels for the walnut cheese formulation: 79% walnut milk, with a walnut/water ratio of 1/1.26, 12% walnut oil, and 1.5% instant yeast. The results demonstrated an increase in the total polyphenol (164 mg GA/100g) and flavonoid (53 mg QE/100g) contents, as well as in DPPH, ABTS, and antioxidant activity values (83.51%, 91.38%) of walnut formulation, compared with animal cheese. In addition, walnut cheese demonstrated a hardness value of 1271.03g, similar to that of animal cheese 1304.27g (P ˂0.05). The walnut cheese recorded a lower L^* index (63.87) and higher a^* (2.00) and b^* (22.74) indexes compared with animal cheese. Overall, walnut cheese was found to be acceptable by sensory evaluation (≥8.27). This study provides a scientific basis for further production process of plant-based cheese.

Acknowledgments: This research was supported by an Institutional Project, subprogram 020405, “Optimizing food processing technologies in the context of the circular bioeconomy and climate change”, Bio-OpTehPAS, being implemented at the Technical University of Moldova.