Well, it’s that time of year again where there is absolutely nothing going on fresh produce wise. It is a great time to start a sprouting jar! I did a tutorial with photos on this back in March. “Grow Your Own Veggies in Any Weather“. Check it out!
I currently have a jar of Chinese cabbage sprouts going in my drainboard (the picture above is mung beans sprouted in a canning jar). I did break down and buy an actual sprouting jar in one of the local health food stores this summer-it was $3, about 2X the size of my large canning jar, and had a nice mesh screen for the top.
I also ordered a bunch of sprouting seeds from Territorial Seed Company. You can of course sprout beans or lentils you have (as long as they are whole. Split lentils won’t sprout) and finding Mung Beans to sprout is pretty easy in any health food store. But I wanted to try some of the more interesting varieties, like radishes for “spicy sprouts”, Broccoli, wheat and the Chinese cabbage.
2 oz of the Radish seeds cost $2.95 (plus shipping) but one tablespoon of seeds can give you up to 2 cups of sprouts. So that 2 oz goes quite a ways!
Here is a table I found with different types of seeds and their yields for sprouting.
Not sure what to do once you have sprouts? Well, besides using them raw in salads and sandwiches (although if you sprout kidney beans you MUST cook them, otherwise they can make you sick), there are lots of ways to cook them. Check out the article I wrote to follow up the sprouting tutorial, “I’ve Sprouted, Now What Do I Do?”.
The ones I’ve currently got in the drainboard are destined for sandwiches, but I’ll be sprouting some mung beans next for stir fries to round out my frozen garden veggies.
Thanks for reminding me, I have made sprouts in the past and everyone likes them. They’re so easy!
Sprouting is really easy. I need to do some mung beans now to add to my fried rice and/or stirfries.