In this paper, the experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of saturated hot air (SHA) pretreatment on the components in apricot kernels and skins compared with the traditional blanching (TB) method, so as to evaluate the feasibility of SHA for removing the skins. Furthermore, the heatmap was employed to correlate the phenolic components and the color values. The results indicate that the SHA temperature and time had a definite influence on some of the components including phenols, amygdalin, proteins and reducing sugars. Compared with the TB, not only the loss of amygdalin, proteins and reducing sugars in apricot kernels used in SHA pretreatment greatly decreased, but also the loss of the phenols, flavonoids, protocatechin, catechin, vanillic acid and chlorogenic acid in the skins decreased by 42.3%, 50.5%, 57.8%, 63.3%, 94.5% and 42.5%, respectively. The SHA pretreatment for removing skins could decrease the amount of wastewater discharge, and lower the loss of active substances in apricot kernels and its skins. In conclusion, the SHA might be as a novel green and efficient method for removing the apricot kernel skins.
