Recent Approaches for Bioactive Peptides Production from Pulses and Pseudocereals

Pulses and pseudocereals are sustainable protein sources of bioactive peptides (BAPs) with potential antioxidant, antihypertensive, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, and immunomodulatory activities. BAPs are typically liberated during gastrointestinal digestion or through bio-based processes, among which enzymatic hydrolysis and microbial fermentation represent the most widely applied strategies. Enzymatic hydrolysis provides controlled and reproducible release of short peptide motifs; recent advances such as ultrasound- or high-pressure–assisted hydrolysis enhance yield and bioactivity. Fermentation exploits microbial proteolytic activity to generate complex peptide mixtures, while improving sensory quality, reducing antinutritional compounds, and responding to consumer demand for natural and “clean-label” products. In silico tools increasingly complement these approaches by accelerating peptide discovery, predicting interactions with molecular targets, and guiding process design. This review provides an updated overview of bio-based methods to produce BAPs from pulses and pseudocereals, emphasizing the comparative advantages of enzymatic and fermentation technologies and their integration with computational tools. Moreover, it examines regulatory frameworks in the European Union, the United States, Japan, and China, while discussing current challenges for industrial scale-up and application in functional foods and nutraceuticals. These combined strategies offer a promising pathway to unlock the health and sustainability potential of plant proteins.