Boneless dry-cured hams were processed by raw material treatment (deboned and tumbled), salting (vacuum packed;4 °C and 60–70% RH for 3.5 months), resting (vacuum packed;15 °C and 60–70% RH for 1.5 months) and ripening (vacuum packed;15 °C and 60–70% RH for 1.5 months). To explore the mechanisms that contributed to the taste of boneless dry-cured hams, 1H NMR-based metabolomics combined with multivariate data analysis was applied to investigate metabolite changes during processing. A total of 28 metabolites, including amino acids, peptide, organic acids, nucleic a...