Abstract: In order to investigate the effect of the addition of edible mushrooms on the quality and flavor of chicken soup, chicken soups were prepared from three-yellow chicken and one of five edible mushrooms, Lentinus edodes, Clitocybe squamulose, Agrocybe aegerita, Sparassis crispa, or Hericium erinaceus, and their ash, crude fat, total sugar, flavor-active nucleotide content and volatile flavor components were determined. The results showed that the contents of ash, total sugar and flavor-active nucleotides in chicken soup with edible mushroom were significantly increased (P < 0.05) and the content of crude fat was significantly decreased (P < 0.05) compared with the blank chicken soup. Among the chicken soups with different edible mushroom, the contents of the ash, total sugar and total flavor-active nucleotides were the highest in the chicken soup with Clitocybe squamulose, which were 0.73%, 2.19 mg/mL and 733.58 mg/L, respectively. A total of 116 volatile flavor substances were identified by solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS), the main ones being alkanes and aldehydes, and the contents of alkanes and aldehydes in chicken soup with edible mushroom were higher than those in the blank chicken soup. The characteristic volatile flavor components in chicken soup with edible mushroom were analyzed using unsupervised principal component analysis (PCA), and supervised orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was used to distinguish the overall differences between groups. Then, clustering analysis combined with heat map was performed, revealing that the volatile composition of chicken soup with Clitocybe squamulose and Agrocybe aegerita differed significantly from that of the blank chicken soup. Based on projection importance of variables (VIP) scores and S-plots, heptadecane, hexanal, 2-methyl-pentadecane, hexadecane, 2,6,10-trimethyl-pentadecane and 2,4-decadienal were found to be the main characteristic markers of chicken soup with Clitocybe squamulose and Agrocybe aegerita. In conclusion, the addition of edible mushrooms can improve the nutritional quality of chicken soup and promote the formation of flavor substances, and the quality of chicken soup with Clitocybe squamulose is the best.

Key words: edible mushrooms; chicken soup; solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry; principal component analysis; orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis