Understanding the techno-functionality of ghee as a cooking medium

1 Introduction

Ghee is a commonly used Indian term for the clarified butter fat which is usually manufactured using buffalo milk, cow milk, sheep milk, or mixed milk. Since ancient times, Ghee is been used as cooking medium in India (Kumar et al., 2018). Apart from being used for cooking, it is also used in religious rituals, medicinal purposes, and in formulation of cosmetic products (Rai et al., 2019). The importance of Ghee is recognized by the Indian consumers, pertaining to its textural characteristics, rich nutritive value, and a typical aroma that adds palatability to the food (Sindhuja et al., 2020). Chemically, Ghee is composed of higher proportion of triglycerides along with lower quantities of sterols, phospholipids, free fatty acids, minerals, and burnt casein (Kumbhare and Prasad, 2023). The consumption of Ghee provides high energy, it serves as an important source of vitamins soluble in fat, source of essential fatty acids like arachidonic acid, linolenic acid (Sindhuja et al., 2020). Ghee is also a source for the component like sphingomyelin, butyric acid, conjugated linolenic acid that are regarded as potential anticarcinogens (Chinnadurai et al., 2013). The Ghee shows considerable shelf stability due to the presence of naturally occurring antioxidants like beta carotene and Vitamin E (Kumar et al., 2018; Rai et al., 2019). As per the nutrition perspective, ghee is preferred over other cooking fat due to presence of medium chain fatty acids and short chain fatty acids that are associated with various health benefits (Jadhav and Annapure, 2022; Kumar et al., 2018).

Ghee is a fundamental ingredient found in Indian kitchens and has long association with the Indian Culture. The use of ghee in Indian cooking has grown over the period of time owing to its characteristics flavour and functional components making it a choice by consumers of all age group (Sindhuja et al., 2020). Ghee is also used as an vital ingredients in formulation of traditional Indian sweets like Ladoo, ghewar, malpua, balushahi, motichur ladoo, halwa, mohanthal, mysore pak, etc (Ankit et al., 2019; Antani and Mahapatra, 2022; Batra et al., 2020; Chaudhary et al., 2020). The smoke point of Ghee is around 250 °C, and is relatively stable at the high temperature, which makes it an good frying medium for Indian foods (Vyas et al., 2017). The utilization of ghee in food products has not only increased in India, but it is in demand across globe. The CAGR for the ghee market is expected to increase by 8.72% i.e. 6.931 billion INR by 2032 (Priyanka, 2024). The dis tinctive fatty acid composition of ghee and its relation in managing several non-communicable diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disorder, obesity and neurological disorder has attracted attention of the health conscious consumers across globe (Devaraji et al., 2024; Kataria and Singh, 2024). The health benefit of ghee is more significant if ghee is consumed in moderate amount. A study by Vyas et al. (2017) have highlighted the negative association between consumption of ghee and risk of heart diseases. The study has showed that the individuals both male and female consuming ghee has no coronary heart diseases history, however individuals consuming oil were associated with the risk of coronary heart disease (Vyas et al., 2017). Despite of numerous advantages of ghee consumption, the utilization of ghee as a cooking medium is rare and not fully explored at the commercial scale. Further, several aspects related to the chemistry of ghee, cooking characteristics, nutritional significance remains unexplored. The present review focuses on understanding the chemistry of ghee, nutritional importance of ghee, the techno-functional characteristics of ghee, comparative assessment of ghee as a cooking medium with the other cooking fat. Further, the review identifies the current research gap and highlights the future research thrust area to help understand the utilization of ghee as a cooking/ frying medium at the commercial scale.

2 Chemistry of ghee

Ghee is considered as a liquid gold in India, and is serving as a fundamental component of Indian culture. The history of use of ghee in Indian culture dates back to ancient times, since when ghee has traveled the journey of its use in ayurvedic preparation to the modern processed food products (Devaraji et al., 2024). Ghee is an anhydrous milk fat containing mixed glycerides of long chain fatty acid, medium chain fatty acid and short chain fatty acids. Apart from this, sterols, phospholipids, carotenoids, fat soluble vitamins, charred casein, free fatty acids, small traces of iron, phosphorus and calcium are also present in ghee (Tian et al., 2023). Large volume of ghee produced across globe comes from buffalo milk and cow milk which differ in the fatty acid composition. Buffalo ghee contains triglycerides with high melting point and appears more granular than the cow ghee. The ghee obtained from buffalo milk contains higher proportion of carbonyl compounds like alk 2–4 dienals, alk-2-enals that are responsible for the flavour in buffalo ghee.

2.1 Fatty acid composition

The short chain fatty acids like butyric acid, caproic acid are present in small proportion in ghee (Table 1). The amount of butyric acid (C₄) present in ghee varies from 0.22%–4.83% depending on the type of ghee, type of ghee preparation method, type of breed, etc. The proportion of butyric acid is lower in cow milk and higher in buffalo milk, the content depends on the type of feed, animal breed, type of preparation of ghee (Kumar et al., 2010). Ghee is considered as one of the important sources of butyric acid for humans. Butyric acid is associated with many health beneficial characteristics like anti-inflammatory, maintains good gut health, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, and prevents risk of cancer (Hodgkinson et al., 2023; Mayorga-ramos and Barba-ostria, 2022). The caproic acid (C₆) content in ghee is little lower than the butyric acid, however their concentration differs in cow ghee and buffalo ghee. In cow and buffalo ghee the caproic acid content ranges between 2%–2.2% and 1%–4% – 1.6% respectively (Modi et al., 2025). The medium chain fatty acids like caprylic acid, capric acid are also present in significant proportion in ghee, however their quantity varies in cow and buffalo ghee. In cow ghee the caprylic acid content varies between 1.1%–1.3% and 0.7%–1.9% in buffalo ghee (Asif et al., 2022; Sruthi et al., 2024). However, the study reported by Mehta, (2013) on fatty acid analysis of Indian Market Ghee showed different proportion of caprylic acid. The authors reported that the ghee from Aarey dairy, Gokul dairy, Nakoda dairy, Gits, Nova, Dynamix, and loose desi brand had 1.22, 1.15, 1.61, 4.07, 1.56, 2.19% and 1.22% caprylic acid respectively. Bhatia et al. (2019) prepared low cholesterol ghee from cow milk and compared it with the normal ghee. The author reported differences in caprylic acid content of both the ghee, the normal ghee showed 0.96% and low cholesterol ghee showed 0.91% caprylic acid, however this was an insignificant difference. The other medium chain fatty acids like capric acid (C₁₀) and lauric acid (C₁₂) with proportion varying from 1.06%–2.51% and 1.95%–3.15% respectively are found in the ghee. The Ghee from Indian origin contained myristic acid (C₁₄) ranging from 10.5%–12.2% and some studies have also reported presence of myristovaccinic acid (C14:1) in buffalo ghee and cow ghee ranging from 0.35%–1.01% and 0.83%–1.73% (Pena-serna and Restrepo-betancur, 2020). The odd chain fatty acid like pentadecanoic acid (C15:1), pentadecyclic acid (C₁₅), margaric acid (C₁₇), heptadecenoic acid (C17:1), heneicosylic acid (C₂₁) are also present in ghee ranging between 0.25%–0.41%, 0.89%–1.42%, 0.35%–0.79%, 0.25%–0.41%, 0.61%–0.62% respectively (Asif et al., 2022; Bircan et al., 2023; Erfani et al., 2020). The palmitic acid (C₁₆) and stearic acid (C₁₈) are the major saturated fatty acids reported in both the cow (30.5%–30.7%, 10.0%–10.2%) and buffalo ghee (33.0%–33.2%, 11.9%–12.1%). The palmitoleic acid is also found in ghee at the proportion ranging from 1.18%–3.61% and 1.13%–2.58% in cow and buffalo ghee respectively (Kumar et al., 2018). The monounsaturated fatty acid (oleic acid) is higher in the cow ghee (24.5%) as compared with the buffalo ghee (22.8%) as reported by Kumar et al. (2018). Ghee also contains polyunsaturated fatty acids like linoleic acid, linolenic acid, arachidonic acid ranging from 0.86–3.43, 0.22–0.55, 0.2%–1.0% respectively (Chinnadurai et al., 2013; Kumar et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2024; Sen et al., 2014). The fatty acids like lignoceric acid – 0.03%, nervonic acid - 0.05%–0.06%, behenic acid – 0.11%–0.12%, dihomo-α-linolenic acid- 0.27%–0.28%, docosadienoic acid – 1.01%–1.1%, dihomo-γ-linolenic acid – 0.22%–0.26%, heneicosylic acid – 0.61%–0.62%, eicosenoic acid – 0.12%, and gonodoic acid – 0.10%–0.19% are present in trace quantity in ghee (Asif et al., 2022; Bhatia et al., 2019). The rich fatty acid profile of ghee makes it a unique cooking medium, thereby incorporating the benefits of every fatty acid in the diet.

TABLE 1. Fatty acid composition of cow and buffalo ghee.

2.2 Acylglycerols and phospholipids

The ghee prepared using cow and buffalo milk mainly consists of triacylglycerols followed by diacylglycerols and monoacylglycerols. Among total acylglycerols, triacylglycerols contribute about 98%, 1%–2% diacylglycerols, 0.1%–0.2% monoacylglycerols and 0–80 mg/100 g phospholipids (Kumar et al., 2018). The triacylglycerol molecules consist of three fatty acids esterified to the skeleton of glycerol at sn-1, sn-2 and sn-3 positions. The triacylglycerol profiling of cow and buffalo ghee was reported by Hazra et al. (2017). The author used gas chromatography containing capillary column (L = 2.5 m) and flame ionization detector for analysis of ghee samples. The cow ghee showed presence of triacylglycerols with the carbon number C₃₆ (9.25 ± 0.8), C₃₈ (12.85 ± 0.89), C₄₀ (11.92 ± 0.36), C₄₂ (6.98 ± 0.2), C₄₄ (6.15 ± 0.3), C₄₆(6.14 ± 0.5), C₄₈(7.85 ± 0.8), C₅₀ (11.81 ± 1.12), C₅₂ (11.61 ± 1.1), C₅₄ (6.13 ± 0.5) in abundance. However, the triacylglycerols with trace amount were also reported 0.075 ± 0.001(C₂₄), 0.33 ± 11(C₂₆), 0.35 ± 0.1(C₂₈), 0.57 ± 0.19(C₃₀), 1.41 ± 0.18(C₃₂), 3.68 ± 1.3 (C₃₄). Similarly, the triacylglycerol that are present in abundance in cow ghee are also found dominating the triacylglycerol profile of buffalo ghee. The quantity of C₃₆, C_38, C₄₀, C_42, C_44, C_46, C_48, C₅₀ C_52, C₅₄ carbon number triacylglycerol in buffalo ghee was reported as 10.64 ± 0.9, 13.62 ± 1.14, 11.44 ± 1.36, 7.017 ± 0.38, 5.81 ± 0.86, 6.08 ± 0.54, 6.97 ± 0.48, 10.02 ± 1.25, 9.88 ± 1.1 respectively (Hazra et al., 2020). In another study by Bhatia et al. (2019), the triacylglycerol profiling of cow ghee was compared with the low cholesterol cow ghee. Both the ghee showed almost same triacylglycerol composition with negligible differences. The process of removal of cholesterol from cow ghee has no effect on the triacylglycerol profile of ghee, thereby giving enhanced health benefits. The triacylglycerol with carbon number C₅₀ was abundant in cow ghee (11.87 ± 0.14) and low cholesterol cow ghee (12.31 ± 0.13). Among all the triacylglycerol, the C₃₆, C_38, C₄₀, C_42, C_50, C₅₂ contribute more than 60% of total triacylglycerols present in buffalo and cow ghee. Another subcategory of lipids are the phospholipids that are also been reported in ghee. The phospholipids contain phosphate group (polar) connected to hydrocarbon chain (non-polar). The proportion of phospholipid present in ghee coming from buffalo milk a cow milk is different; the phospholipid content of 42.5 mg/100 g is present in buffalo ghee. The ghee from cow milk contains 38 mg/100 g of phospholipids, which is lower than the buffalo ghee (Mohamed, 2025). However, some studies have reported that because of the polar nature of phospholipids, most of the phospholipids remains with the ghee residue and only small proportion of it is transferred into ghee (Bhavaniramya et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2018).

3 Ghee as a cooking medium

Ghee is well-known among the Indian consumers for its health beneficial characteristics and has permanently created space for itself in Indian kitchens. Since, ancient times Ghee is been used as a medium of food preparation in India (Bali and Saini, 2018). Ghee is preferred as a cooking medium over the conventional cooking oils owing to its typical buttery and nutty flavour (Rekha et al., 2025). The food fried in ghee as a frying medium shows rich buttery flavour that enhances palatability of the fried food product (Arshath et al., 2023). The smoke point of ghee is higher than the commonly used conventional cooking oils, which makes it an ideal cooking/frying medium. The smoke point of ghee falls is around 250 °C which is higher than the commonly used cooking oils and considerably higher than the temperature normally required for cooking (180 °C–200 °C) (Table 2). The stability of ghee at high temperature makes it an ideal for cooking, frying, searing, roasting, high heat sauteing without generating harmful free radicals (Kataria and Singh, 2024). The nutritional superiority of ghee in terms of presence of medium chain fatty acid and short chain fatty acid also makes it a good option as a cooking medium in comparison with cooking oils. The medium chain fatty acids are directly absorbed by the liver and are used as an energy source (Jadhav and Annapure, 2022). A study on the effect of heating on the molecular composition of ghee was reported by Ahmad and Saleem (2018). The authors used fluorescence spectroscopy to study the effect of heat on the ghee obtained from buffalo milk. The heat treatment between the 140 °C–170 °C has no significant effect on the natural components present in the ghee. However, at the temperature beyond 200 °C, the ghee started deteriorating and became rancid. Hence, the temperature well suited for cooking/ frying using ghee without losing its beneficial characteristics is in the range of 140 °C–170 °C. The temperature above 180 °C results in formation of secondary oxidation products like aldehydes and ketones. Heating of ghee beyond 200 °C shows shifting of the spectra towards the higher wavelength (Figure 1) indicating oxidation of the bioactive components in comparison with the control sample (non-heated sample of buffalo ghee). The effect of frying temperature on the characteristics of ghee used in frying of Gulabjamun at different temperature was studied by Panwar et al. (2023). The initial peroxide value, free fatty acid, Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value of 0.79 meq O₂/ kg fat, 0.338% oleic acid, and 0.014 increased to 3.2 meq O₂/ kg fat, 0.395% oleic acid and 0.148 respectively at the end of 15 frying cycles at 120 °C under vacuum (400 mmHg). The stability of ghee as a frying medium was established for 15 frying cycles under frying condition of 120 °C, 5 min and 400mmHg, showing higher thermal stability of ghee compared with the conventional frying oils (Panwar et al., 2023). The properties like the specific heat and the thermal conductivity of the cooking medium are important consideration while making a choice for a good cooking/ frying medium. These thermophysical characteristics of cooking medium are indicative of behaviour of cooking medium when heated, which directly affects the cooking efficiency and energy usage. In a recent study by Narsaiah and Ghodki (2023), the thermophysical characteristics of ghee was studied at different frying temperatures. The thermal conductivity and the specific heat of ghee increased with increased in temperature from initial value of 0.449W/m K and 0.491J/kg K (16 °C) to 8.34W/mK and 0.835J/kg K (140 °C) respectively. The thermal breakdown of ghee results in formation of components like free fatty acids that increases the heat transfer rate and thus thermal conductivity. Further, increase in temperature increases the kinetic energy of molecules causing higher vibrations, collisions and increase in internal energy of molecules, thereby increasing the specific heat at higher temperature (Narsaiah and Ghodki, 2023). The exposure of ghee to the higher frying temperature results in formation of primary and secondary oxidation compounds. The FTIR spectra of unheated ghee sample, heated ghee sample and fried ghee sample using conventional frying and air frying showed stretching of = C-H (cis-) at 2,800–3,050 cm^-1 (Figure 2). The ghee sample showed higher peroxide value when exposed to higher temperature using conventional methods. However use of air fryer for frying/ heating showed significant reduction in the peroxide value of ghee (Baskaya-sezer, 2025). The smoke point of ghee is higher as compared with the conventional cooking oil and hence it has higher thermal stability, however exposure to higher temperature for longer duration results in degradation of ghee. The addition of natural antioxidant to ghee before subjecting to higher temperature can prevent the thermal deterioration of ghee. In a study by Arshath et al. (2023), the oxidative stability of ghee containing curry leaf extract was evaluated for frying time of 60 min. The author reported 22.15% ± 0.2% and 23.2% ± 0.2% total polar components in control ghee and ghee with extract of curry leaf subjected to frying for 60min. The Thiobarbituric acid value was significantly higher for the ghee (0.382 ± 0.003 TBARS/0.1 g fat) as compared with the ghee containing leaf extract (0.242 ± 0.002 TBARS/0.1 g fat). Similar results were also reported by Pawar et al. (2014), using herb extract as an antioxidant enhancing the oxidative stability of ghee. Still, there exist a higher research gap in the literature, as there are very few studies reporting use of ghee as a cooking/ frying medium. The future studies should focus on use of ghee as a frying medium for frying of food material with different composition and moisture content. Further the studies should also evaluate the effect of frying/ cooking on the characteristics of food material. The future research in this domain will assist in optimizing parameters for use of ghee in processing of food products at commercial scale.

TABLE 2. Comparative physicochemical characteristics of ghee with other animal and vegetable fat/oil commonly used.

4 Techno-functional characteristics of ghee

4.1 Characteristics defining ghee’s suitability as cooking medium

4.1.1 Physicochemical characteristics

The color of ghee varies from white to yellow color, the yellow color is due to presence of carotenoids. Usually, the color of cow ghee is yellow and due to absence of the coloring pigments in buffalo ghee, it appears white. However, the presence of bilirubin and biliverdin gives greenish tint to buffalo ghee. Ghee is a clarified butter and rich in milk fat containing different fatty acids as discussed in earlier sections. The triacylglycerols present in ghee has different melting point (MP) and solidification point (SP), hence ghee does not have a sharp MP and SP. The MP/ SP of buffalo ghee and cow ghee are 32 °C–43.5 °C/ 16.0 °C–28.0 °C and 28 °C–41 °C/ 15.0 °C–23.5 °C respectively (Ali et al., 2025). The differences in the MP and SP of the cow and buffalo ghee are due to variations in the triacylglycerol compositions. Another physical property that depends on the composition is the specific gravity (SG), which is 0.91 and 0.82 (40 °C) for buffalo and cow ghee respectively (Nimbkar and Shanmugasundaram, 2019). The values for SG also change with change in the temperature, the SG at 30 °C for buffalo and cow ghee is reported as 0.9340–0.9444 and 0.9358–0.9443 respectively (Hariyani, 2010). The chemical characteristics like Reichert-Meissl (RM) value, Polenske value (PV), Kirschner value (KV), and Saponification value (SV) are important parameters to check the quality of ghee. The RM value measures the fatty acids like butyric acid and caproic acid that are volatile. The RM value for the cow and buffalo ghee ranges between 28.82 - 30.25 and 31.24 - 35.09 respectively (Mor et al., 2022). The water insoluble fatty acids (caprylic acid, capric acid) that are steam volatile are measured by PV which is 1.41 and 1.76 for buffalo and cow ghee respectively. The average molecular weight of the fatty acid present in ghee is measured by the SV which ranges from 198–239.3 and 212.8–232.8 for buffalo and cow ghee respectively (Shrikhande et al., 2022). The most important component from the health perspective is the cholesterol and it is categorized as the unsaponifiable matter present in ghee. The quantity of cholesterol present in ghee depends on the processing methods and processing parameters of ghee (Bose et al., 2019). The cholesterol content of cow and buffalo ghee is 0.330% and 0.275% respectively. However, the cholesterol content of ghee can be reduced by using β-cyclodextrin as adsorbent and base material as butter as reported by Bhatia et al. (2019). The authors reported 90% decrease in the cholesterol content without altering the physicochemical characteristics and appearance of ghee. The decrease in the content of cholesterol from ghee makes it an ideal choice for preparation of processed food as demanded from the health-friendly consumers.

4.1.2 Thermal stability

Thermal stability of a cooking medium is an important parameter which prevent the deterioration of cooking medium at higher temperatures. Ghee has an excellent thermal stability and smoke point of 245 °C–250 °C, which is higher than some of the commonly used conventional cooking oils (Bali and Utaal, 2019). The smoke point temperature is critical and beyond this temperature the cooking medium starts degrading and there is formation of peroxides and secondary oxidation products that can have negative affect on human health (Tilmaz et al., 2023). The smoke point of 250 °C, provides thermal stability to ghee, making it an ideal cooking/ frying medium. The presence of higher quantum of saturated fat in the ghee makes it resistance to oxidation as compared with conventional oil containing higher unsaturation. The conventional frying oil contains unsaturated fatty acids and the interactive consequence of the high frying/cooking temperature coupled with the moisture (oozing out from the food material during frying) and the oxygen (present in the atmosphere) causes degradation of the frying/cooking medium. Further, a chain reaction is initiated, ultimately leading to formation of oxidative by-products causing adverse change in the physicochemical, textural and sensory attributes of frying medium (Jadhav, 2024). These degradation components accumulates and it is taken up by the fried food material. The accumulation of these oxidative by-products also negatively affects the rate of heat transfer from the frying medium to the food material (Zhang et al., 2020). The formation of total polar components (TPC) in the frying medium indicates the presence of secondary oxidation products in the oil exposed to heat. In a study by Baskaya-sezer, (2025), the author studied the effect of type of frying on the quality of frying medium. The author reported formation of TPC in the frying medium exposed to different frying temperature. The TPC in ghee increased from 0.22% ± 0.00% (fresh sample) to 3.84% ± 0.22% (ghee heated at 123 °C in air fryer) and 6.46% ± 0.11% (ghee heated at 224 °C by conventional method). The thermal stability of ghee was reported to be similar to the conventional cooking oil used for frying. However, the difference was observed in the type of frying method, the conventional frying caused higher degradation of frying medium compared with the air frying. In another study by Arshath et al. (2023), the frying of Gulab jamun (Indian sweet) was carried out at 180 °C using ghee as a frying medium. The author investigated thermal degradation after every 15 min of frying. The TPC of the ghee sample increased as 19.13 ± 0.06, 20.16 ± 0.16, 21.23 ± 0.2, 22.36% ± 0.03% and 23.2% ± 0.2% at 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 min respectively. However, the TPC values were below the limit of 25% after 60 min of frying at 180 °C. In literature, few studies have also reported the effect of addition of antioxidants on the stability of ghee exposed to frying temperature. The addition of antioxidants obtained from Pueraria tuberosa, Asparagus racemosus and Withania somnifera herbs to ghee showed excellent radical scavenging activity and prevented the oxidative breakdown of ghee during accelerated oxidation conditions at 120 °C and 12 L/h as the flowrate of air in rancimat (Pawar et al., 2014). The good thermal properties like specific heat and the thermal conductivity of ghee also makes it a good cooking/ frying medium, for processing of food at commercial scale. In, India the use of ghee for cooking is practiced from ancient days and still today it’s use is continued. The method of cooking like deep frying, shallow frying, sauteing also decides the stability of ghee. The higher deterioration to ghee is caused in deep frying due to repetitive frying cycles and prolonged exposure of ghee to the higher temperature. The shallow frying and sauteing causes minimum deterioration to ghee due to minimum thermal exposure. The optimized temperature between 160 °C–180 °C is considered suitable for cooking/ frying using ghee, however long exposure to temperature >200 °C results in formation of oxidative bi-products. Like other frying medium, the thermal stability of ghee decreases with increase in the frying cycles due to formation of polar compounds, secondary oxidation products, free fatty acids, etc. However, the research available in the literature is limited and the future research on ghee should focus on use of ghee in frying/cooking of food material with different composition. The future studies should also focus on optimizing the time-temperature combination for frying of different food without significant damage to the frying medium and fried food. This will help in bridging the existing gap and utilizing ghee on the commercial scale to help meet the increasing demand for ghee and processed food using ghee.

4.2 Characteristics defining consumer acceptance of ghee

4.2.1 Granulation and texture of ghee

Granulation of ghee is an important parameter responsible for the consumer acceptance, as consumers usually prefer ghee having good grainy texture. Ghee is a complex mixture of triacylglycerols containing different fatty acids esterified to glycerol backbone (Rachana et al., 2013). The triglyceride mixture having different meting point has a unique characteristic of forming grainy texture. The phenomenon of crystallization involving the process of nucleation and the growth of crystals due to presence of triglycerides with high melting point results in granulation. The granular texture of ghee is usually affected by the fatty acid composition, cow/ buffalo milk, method of preparation, temperature of clarification, rate of cooling, seeding and the temperature of cooling. Rachana et al. (2013) reported the comparative assessment of granulation in laboratory ghee and commercial ghee samples. The authors reported good granulation with average size of 0.241 mm in the laboratory ghee incubated for 24 h at 29 °C. The commercial ghee samples showed varying degree of granulation with average size of 0.160 ± 0.006, 0.223 ± 0.005, 0.212 ± 0.008, 0.305 ± 0.005, 0.314 ± 0.002, 0.230 ± 0.006, 0.249 ± 0.002, 0.317 ± 0.004, 0.268 ± 0.007, 0.309 ± 0.002 for A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J commercial ghee samples respectively. The author concluded poor granulation in sample A, normal granulation in B, C, F and good granulation in E, G, H, I sample compared with the laboratory ghee sample (Figure 3). The process of seeding improves the formation of grains in ghee, the grains appear spherical in shape and if seeding is improperly done then the grains appear needle like in shape. The variations in the cooling conditions of ghee significantly affects the texture of ghee. The fast cooling of ghee results in formation of larger number of very fine crystals which gives smooth and greasy texture to ghee. The slow cooling of ghee forms smaller number of crystals having higher melting point. The ghee prepared from cow milk and buffalo milk shows variations in the granular structure due to differences in the fatty acid composition. The granules appear like irregular crystals in the buffalo ghee whereas they appear like small divergent monocrystals in cow ghee (Armughan and Narayanan, 1982; Karuna, 2011). The size and the quantity of the crystals formed during the process of cooling differs with the rate of cooling. The quick cooling of ghee produces 80%–85% of crystals with the size ranging between 0.1–0.136 mm. However, the slow cooling produces around 30%–35% crystals with the size ranging from 0.206–0.233 mm (Rachana et al., 2013). The presence of fatty acids like palmitic acid, stearic acid, myristic acid in higher concentration in buffalo ghee facilitates formation of bigger grains in the buffalo ghee as compared with the cow ghee. The process of granulation in ghee can be improved by addition of surfactants or the emulsifiers like monoacylglycerols.

4.2.2 Flavour of ghee

The ghee manufacturing process involves various heat treatment methods that forms a various aroma components resulting from degradation of proteins and interaction of mineral components with the sugar. The ghee is known for its caramelized, nutty and buttery flavour, due to presence of numerous flavour producing components. The flavour producing components belongs to the class of aldehydes, ketones, monocarbonyls, dicarbonyls, alcohols, fatty acids, carboxylic acids, and lactones. The flavouring components are continuously produced during the process of manufacturing of ghee due to heat. The interaction between the lactose sugar and the protein, protein degradation components and the sugar, formation of free fatty acids, oxidation of the triacylglycerols are responsible for the development of flavours in ghee (Rekha et al., 2025). Most of the flavour producing components like larixinic acid, hydroxymaltol, furfuryl alcohol, 2-methyl pentanal, acetaldehydehexanal, 2-Heptanone, 4-Hepten-3-one diethyl, Delta dodecalactone, Gamma-lactone, 2-Pentanone etc., are formed by the Maillard reaction. The major carbonyl components reported in the cow and buffalo ghee are pentanone and propanone, however the quantity of the carbonyl components is higher in buffalo ghee as compared with the cow ghee. γ- and δ-lactones are lower in buffalo ghee and higher in cow ghee and are responsible for the peach and the coconut aroma. The formation of the volatile aroma compound is influenced by many factors like method of preparation of ghee, clarification temperature, time required for clarification. The flavour profile of ghee can be enhanced by adopting the suitable preparation method; however, the traditional method is known to imparts good flavour profile to ghee making it an ideal choice of consumers.

5 Nutritional importance of ghee

Ghee is considered as a nutritionally important component in human diet. It is calorie dense and consists of various health beneficial components like vitamins, short chain fatty acids, conjugated linolenic acid and milk fat globule membrane. These components show potential effects against non-communicable diseases like atherosclerosis, cancer, osteoporosis, gastrointestinal problems, skin healing, anti-inflammatory, wound healing (Kataria and Singh, 2024). Ghee is a carrier of lipid soluble vitamins like vit A, vit D, vit E, vit K. These vitamins have important roles in human body and deficiency of any of these vitamins can lead to serious health concerns. Both the cow and buffalo ghee shows contains different proportion of these vitamins. Vitamin D, B12 and K are present in higher concentration in cow ghee and vitamin A is present in higher concentration in buffalo ghee. The concentration of vitamin E is reported to be almost similar in both the ghee (Ahmad and Saleem, 2018). The conjugated linolenic acid (CLA) is another nutritionally important components derived from ghee. CLA is a biologically active component shows potential health beneficial characteristics like anticarcinogenic, antiatherosclerosis, anti-inflammatory, and anti-allergic characteristics (Virsangbhai et al., 2020). In a study by Chinnadurai et al. (2013), female rats were fed with the high CLA ghee, low CLA diet and the soybean diet for 35 days. The authors reported low triglycerides and cholesterol levels in the liver and aorta of rats fed with ghee. Additionally, the concentration of high-density lipoprotein was higher with reduction in the atherogenic index from 0.472 to 0.244. The ghee containing higher concentration of CLA can be used in daily diet to help reduce the risk of coronary heart diseases. The content of CLA in milk can be enhanced by feeding cow and buffalo with green fodder. In a study by Tyagi et al. (2008), it is reported that feeding of cow and buffalo with the green fodder increases the CLA concentration in milk of both the cow and buffalo. The traditional method of ghee preparation increased the CLA content in cow and buffalo ghee. However, the CLA content was higher in cow milk and cow ghee as compared with the buffalo milk and buffalo ghee. The presence of short chain fatty acids and medium chain fatty acids in the ghee imparts antiobesity, anticarcinogenic and anti-bacterial characteristics to the ghee. The medium chain fatty acids serve as the source of instant energy and are not stored in the body as fat. They are known to boost physiological health, reduces anxiety, improves social behaviour, manages epilepsy (Jadhav and Annapure, 2022). Similarly, the beneficial effect of short chain fatty acids is well documented in literature. The beneficial effects include anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antiobesity, anticancer, neuroprotective, cardiovascular protection, immunoregulation, constipation treatment, hepatoprotection, inflammatory bowel diseases treatment (Figure 4) (Mansuy-aubert and Ravussin, 2023; Xiong et al., 2022). The valuable lipid molecule and the protein components are found in the membrane surrounding the milk fat globule. Triacylglycerols, diacylglycerols, monoacylglycerols, cholesterol are present in the milk fat globule membrane The other components like butyrophilin, phosphatidyl inositol, gangliosides glucosylceramide, sphingomyelin, phosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, lactosyl ceramide, fatty acid obligatory protein are collectively involved in imparting health friendly characteristics to the milk fat globule membrane (Kosmerl et al., 2021; Kwak et al., 2013; Pan et al., 2023). In conclusion, ghee is the power house of biologically active components that can prevent the non-communicable diseases, which have become a common among the young individuals across globe due to adoption of desk bound and sedentary life styles. Ghee as a cooking medium should be prioritized and the conventional cooking oils can be replaced with the ghee for home-based cooking.

6 Shelf life

The moisture content present in ghee is less than 0.5% which prevent microbial spoilage in ghee. The primary cause for quality deterioration in ghee is due to oxidative damage to the triacylglycerols resulting in development of off flavor and decreased nutritional value. The auto-oxidation initiates the oxidative deterioration in lipids thereby forming hydroperoxides as primary oxidation products which are tasteless. However, these peroxides are unstable and degrades to form secondary oxidation products leading to quality deterioration of ghee (Kumbhare and Prasad, 2023). In comparison with the conventional cooking oil the shelf life of ghee is much better due to presence higher concentration of saturated fatty acid and monounsaturated fatty acids that are more resistive to oxidative deterioration as compared with polyunsaturated fatty acids. Choosing ghee as a cooking medium offers higher shelf life and the ghee can be used for longer period of time before it is subjected to cooking/ frying operations. Though the shelf life of ghee is better than the conventional cooking oil, the polyunsaturated fraction in ghee also undergoes oxidative changes and formation of rancidity in ghee cannot be ignored (Ahmed and Umme, 2023). The addition of antioxidants to ghee prevents the oxidative deterioration by arresting the free radical activity. A study by Gosewade et al. (2017), reported changes in the physicochemical characteristics of cow ghee and buffalo ghee during the storage period of 240 days. The ghee sample with 0.02% Butylated Hydroxy Anisole (BHA) showed insignificant increase in the RM, PV, free fatty acids, conjugate dienes, peroxide value as compared with the control sample (ghee sample without antioxidant). In recent years, the demand for the natural antioxidant has increased, due to safety concerns associated with the synthetic antioxidants like BHA and the natural antioxidants are been reported to provide higher oxidative stability compared with the synthetic antioxidants (Kumbhare and Prasad, 2023). A comparative study on investigating the antioxidant potential of BHA and orange peel powder in extending shelf life of ghee was reported by Ahmed and Umme (2023). The orange peel powder showed radical scavenging activity (RSA) of 87.17 ± 0.38 (at 4 °C), 85.01 ± 0.39 (at 25 °C), 77.97% ± 0.42% (at 60 °C) on 0 day and 81.52 ± 0.07 (at 4 °C), 75.19 ± 0.15 (at 25 °C), 69.92% ± 0.04% (at 60 °C) at 21 days of storage period. The RSA of BHA was reported as 73.18 ± 0.33 (at 4 °C), 72.70 ± 0.19 (at 25 °C), 65.71% ± 0.77% (at 60 °C) on 0 day and 66.58 ± 0.66 (at 4 °C), 63.04 ± 0.52 (at 25 °C), 60.32% ± 0.34% (at 60 °C) on 21 days of ghee storage. A review by Kumbhare and Prasad (2023) have reported in detail the studies showing use of natural antioxidant from plant sources in enhancing the shelf life of ghee samples (El-shourbagy and El-zahar, 2014). The shelf life or the oxidative stability of ghee during cooking/ frying is of prime importance to adopt ghee as a cooking/ frying medium on the commercial scale. The addition of natural extract having antioxidant potential to the ghee before frying has been reported to resist the thermal degradation. Arshath et al. (2023) investigated use of curry leaf extract and BHA on the characteristics of ghee used for frying of Gulabjamun at 180 °C for 60min. The author reported ghee sample containing curry leaf extract showed delayed oxidation due higher antioxidant activity as compared with the ghee containing BHA. The thermal stability of ghee with curry leaf was better as compared with BHA containing ghee and the addition of curry leaf extract has no effect on the physicochemical characteristics of the ghee as a frying medium. The reported studies have proved the potential of ghee as an excellent cooking/ frying medium and the shelf life of this medium can be enhanced by addition of natural antioxidants at known concentration to resist the thermal degradation. However, still there exist a gap in the research as the research has not focused on evaluating the shelf stability of food product fried using ghee. Further, the effect of repetitive frying on the ghee and the food fried in ghee has not been reported in literature. The effect of repetitive frying (shallow frying/ deep fat frying) cycle on the oxidative profile, sensory profile, physicochemical characteristics of ghee is still lacking in the literature. The future research in this direction will assist in providing an optimized data to the young entrepreneurs working on utilization of ghee as a frying medium in formulation of traditional and non-traditional fried food products.

7 Conclusion and future scope

Ghee a traditional Indian cooking medium, has recently attracted the attention of food scientists owing to its distinctive techno-functional characteristics and application in the modern food system. Ghee is a complicated lipid system containing more than 99.6% milk fat and less than 0.1% moisture. Due to its unique physicochemical, textural, thermal and nutritional characteristics, ghee is been used as a cooking medium in India since ancient times. The use of ghee in cooking/ frying also assists in the flavour development in food products. The fatty acid composition of ghee includes short chain fatty acids, medium chain fatty acids and long chain fatty acids having health beneficial characteristics. However, the concentration of these fatty acids is different in cow ghee and buffalo ghee. The characteristics like higher smoke point and presence of higher saturated fatty acids provides thermal and oxidative stability to ghee during high temperature frying/ cooking as compared with commonly used conventional edible oils. Additionally, Ghee is preferred as a cooking medium over the conventional cooking oils owing to its typical buttery and nutty flavour. The food fried in ghee shows rich buttery flavour that enhances palatability of the fried food product. The long association of Indian diet with ghee is also attributed to its nutritional superiority as compared with other edible oil. The presence of fat-soluble vitamins, small and medium chain fatty acids, conjugated linolenic acid, essential fatty acid, antioxidants impart characteristic properties like anti-inflammatory, anti-atherosclerosis, anti-ageing, anti-tumor, improves brain health, skin healing, gastrointestinal health benefits to ghee. Ghee has higher shelf life compared to the conventional oil due to unique fatty acid profile and microbiologically stable due to negligible moisture content. However, the high frying temperature results in oxidative damage to ghee by forming primary and secondary oxidation products. The studies discussed in this review shows the conventional edible oil are severely affected by thermal degradation as compared with the ghee, proving the higher stability of ghee as frying medium over conventional edible oils. The stability of ghee can further be enhanced by addition of antioxidants extracted from natural plant sources or synthetic antioxidants. The natural antioxidants are more effective in extending shelf life of ghee as compared with the synthetic antioxidants. Ghee as a cooking medium/ frying medium has not been fully explored, the present research lacks studies on effect of different frying temperature, frying time, composition of food material on the quality of frying medium after repetitive frying cycles. Further, the effect of repetitive frying on the quality of food material in terms of physicochemical, textural, and sensorial characteristics need to be studied. The areas provide promising directions for the future research that will assist in optimizing the frying/ cooking parameters for processed food materials. This will assist food processing industries to develop processed foods, snack foods, fried foods, sweets by making use of ghee to meet the increasing demand from consumers at the commercial scale.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

Edited by: Youssef El Rayess, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon

Reviewed by: Dandan Pu, Beijing Technology and Business University, China

Fei Xiang, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China