Citation: El Sheikha, A.F.; Allam, A.Y.; ElObeid, T.; Basiouny,E.A.; Abdelaal, A.A.; Amarowicz, R.; Oz, E.; Proestos, C.; Karrar, E.; Oz, F. Impact of a Carboxymethyl Cellulose Coating Incorporated with an Ethanolic Propolis Extract on the Quality Criteria of Chicken Breast Meat. Antioxidants 2022, 11, 1191. https://doi.org/10.3390/ antiox11061191 Academic Editors: Ranjith Ramanathan and Kathrine Bak Received: 18 May 2022 Accepted: 14 June 2022 Published: 17 June 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). antioxidants Article Impact of a Carboxymethyl Cellulose Coating Incorporated with an Ethanolic Propolis Extract on the Quality Criteria of Chicken Breast Meat Aly Farag El Sheikha 1,2,3, * ,† , Ayman Younes Allam 3,† , Tahra ElObeid 4 , Elham Abdelrahman Basiouny 5 , Ahmad Abdelkaway Abdelaal 5 , Ryszard Amarowicz 6, * , Emel Oz 7 , Charalampos Proestos 8 , Emad Karrar 9 and Fatih Oz 7, * 1 College of Bioscience and Bioengineering, Jiangxi Agricultural University, 1101 Zhimin Road, Nanchang 330045, China 2 Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Nutrition Sciences, University of Ottawa, 25 University Private, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada 3 Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Minufiya University, Shibin El Kom 32511, Egypt; ayman_alaam@yahoo.com 4 Human Nutrition Department, College of Health Sciences, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha P.O. Box 2713, Qatar; tahra.e@qu.edu.qa 5 Economic Entomology & Agriculture Zoology Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Menofiya University, Shibin El Kom 32511, Egypt; eabdo1169@gmail.com (E.A.B.); aakaway@yahoo.com (A.A.A.) 6 Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, 10-748 Olsztyn, Poland 7 Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Ataturk University, Erzurum 25240, Türkiye; emel.oz@atauni.edu.tr 8 Laboratory of Food Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, School of Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece; harpro@chem.uoa.gr 9 National Engineering Research Center for Functional Food, Collaborative Innovation Center of Food Safety and Quality Control in Jiangsu Province, School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; emadkarrar26@yahoo.com * Correspondence: elsheikha_aly@yahoo.com (A.F.E.S.); r.amarowicz@pan.olsztyn.pl (R.A.); fatihoz@atauni.edu.tr (F.O.) † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: Recently, the demand for composite edible coatings has increased significantly as a new trend to confront the serious processing and storage problems that always arise regarding chicken meat. We aim to develop a carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) coating containing various concentrations (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4%) of an ethanolic propolis extract (EPE) to maintain the quality and extend the shelf life of chicken breast meat stored at 2 ◦ C for 16 days. The influence of the CMC and EPE coating on the physicochemical and microbiological quality parameters of chicken breast meat, e.g., pH, color, metmyoglobin (MetMb), lipid oxidation (thiobarbituric acid reactive substance, TBARS), and microbiological and sensory analyses, was studied. Significantly lower weight loss and pH (p ≤ 0.05) were noted in the coated samples compared with the uncoated samples (control) over the storage period. MetMb content was significantly reduced (p ≤ 0.05) in the coated samples compared to the control. Additionally, the addition of EPE to CMC was more effective in inhibiting microbial growth, preventing lipid oxidation, and keeping the overall acceptability of coated chicken breast meat compared to the control. This work presents CMC and EPE as alternative preservatives to produce active packaging coatings. Keywords: bioactive coating; carboxymethyl cellulose; propolis; physicochemical and microbiological quality parameters; sensory evaluation 1. Introduction Chicken is one of the most popular types of meat. Chicken meat is a great source of many key nutrients, including protein, vitamins, and minerals [1–3]. However, the chicken Antioxidants 2022, 11, 1191. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox11061191 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/antioxidants