Some additives used in the meat products processing, such as sodium nitrite, lactate, phosphate, and ascorbate are responsible for safety, lipid oxidation stability, and sensory properties, therefore their reduction must be conducted carefully. As the reformulation of a meat product with health appeals implicates in the reduction of some additive, besides nitrite, it is important to know the effects of their removal because these are compounds that can interfere in residual nitrite content. With this, the study aimed to evaluate the effect of addition/removal of additives (sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), sodium ascorbate (SA) and sodium lactate (SL)), or spices in emulsified meat products (before and after cooking) on pH, lipid oxidation and nitrite content. Five treatments were elaborated: FC (control treatment): containing spices, SA and STPP; F1: without spices; F2: without SA; F3: without STPP; and F4: added of SL. Results showed that F3 (without phosphate) reached the lowest pH value (5.88 and 6.19, before and after cooking, respectively) (P<0.05), since this compound is responsible for the increase of water holding capacity by increasing pH, so its absence in product implicates on the opposite effect. After cooking, the lipid oxidation results showed higher TBARS values for treatments F1, F2 and F3 (without spices, ascorbate, and phosphate, respectively). All three compounds have antioxidant properties, so their removal increased lipid oxidation. After cooking, the meat model systems reduced between 20.48% and 32.22% the nitrite content, and these values were calculated considering the initial addition of 150 mg/kg sodium nitrite in the batter. With this study, as the first step to a reformulation, the authors concluded that the addition or removal of some additive impacted on pH and TBARS values. However, nitrite depletion will continue to occur during shelf life, so further studies are necessary to evaluate the behaviour of residual nitrite during storage.