Probiotic plant-based yogurts from common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris): physicochemical properties, bioactive peptides, and health-promoting activities before and after in vitro digestion

Soybean and common beans (navy, great northern, pinto, and red kidney) were used to prepare plant-based milks and their corresponding probiotic yogurts. Fermentation significantly enhanced textural properties of all bean yogurts, particularly in great northern yogurt, which also presented the highest whiteness along with the lowest syneresis (3.20%). Pinto yogurt had the greatest free radical scavenging activity (60.61 g/mL) and total phenolic content (2 736.92 mg/L). Total peptide content considerably increased in all fermented samples, highest in red kidney yogurt, as indicated by SDS-PAGE. Following gastrointestinal simulation, yogurt digestates showed improved bioactivity over bean milks, including higher phenolics (up to 6 869.84 mg/L in pinto), radical quenching (greatest in pinto with 112.76 g/mL), and antihypertensive activity (29.75% in red kidney). Viable probiotics remained above 1 × 10⁶ CFU/g after 28 days. These findings indicate that bioactive-rich, bean-based functional yogurts have the potential to promote digestive health, exhibit antihypertensive functionality, and effectively serve as carriers of viable probiotics. Moreover, bean cultivar selection should be guided by the intended functional application, with red kidney beans offering the greatest potential for antihypertensive activity, pinto beans providing superior antioxidant capacity, and great northern beans delivering enhanced textural and color attributes. Accordingly, these outcomes provide practical guidance for the targeted development of plant-based probiotic yogurts using specific legume varieties.