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Mexican pigmented maize (Zea mays L.) landrace kernels have been scantily evaluated regarding potential as functional food. In this study, two Mexican pigmented (yellow and red) maize accessions of Tuxpeño, Tabloncillo and Chapalote landraces collected in the northwestern region of Mexico were processed into tortilla to determinate total phenolic content, their Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) as well as the Cellular Antioxidant Activity (CAA) and Quality of phenolic compounds in the free and bound fraction of maize grains processed into tortilla by traditional nixtamalization and by extrusion cooking processes. Both the raw grain as nixtamalized and extruded tortillas, the bound fraction of phenolic extracts provided 64 to 90% and 71.6 to 92.8% of total phenols and ORAC-H levels, respectively. However, the traditional tortillas retained between 38.4 to 50.3% and 50.1 to 72.9% of total phenolics and ORAC-H levels, while the extruded tortillas retained 100% of the original content present in raw grain and even showed an increase. Nixtamalized tortilla had the highest Total Cellular Antioxidant Quality (TCAQ) (measure of cell antioxidant activity provided by 100 µmol of total phenols found in the extract), especially those made with red corn (R- 364) while extruded tortillas had a lower or equal TCAQ to their raw grain. These results indicate that the process of lime-cooking extrusion allows greater retention and release of phenolic phytochemicals content and antioxidant capacity in tortillas elaborated by this process, while the process of nixtamalization allows tortillas with lower CAA compared with the extrusion process but with higher TCAQ.