Adding indexed field to Search API query in code
$query-&gt;fields(array('title'));


Doesn't do what you think it does/should, this tells Search API that this is one of your fulltext fields that you want querying against the string you passed to keys()

$query-&gt;keys($text);


What backend are you using for Search API, in my experience Solr returns all indexed non empty fields. Make sure the Title is indexed so that it is available to your Search API's backend.