Ready. Set. Sprout! Sprouting beans and seeds is fun, simple and delicious.

How To Grow

Many of you have probably eaten sprouts and come across tutorials on growing your own.

How many of you have ever actually grown sprouts?

Did you know that it's really, really ridiculously easy to do?

My 4 and 6 year old's made their own jars of sprouts. 

Did you know that sprouts are a fabulous source of vitamins and minerals? They are a true super food.

They taste wonderful and you can put them on sandwhiches, salads, seafood, hummus, stir fry's and soups.

So what are you waiting for? First, here are a few things you need to know about sprouting.

 

First, find yourself some beans, seeds or legumes. Most any will do, however seeds for sprouting differ from the seeds you normally plant in your garden since garden seeds may be pre-treated with chemicals.

The most common seeds used for sprouting are alfalfa, mung {beans} radish, sunflower, cabbage and broccoli seeds.

I used mung beans for this tutorial that I purchased at Sprouts no less. ;)

• Rinse and sort your beans/seeds. Remove any rotten or damaged looking ones so they don't spoil the bunch.
• Using a sieve, rinse again under cool water.

Some smaller seeds can be sprouted on a moist paper towel but it's usually best to use a wide mouth jar like this one.

• Sprouts will grow up to 8 times in size so start with a tablespoon if you're using larger beans like these. I totally over did it and ended up with 4 jars jam packed with sprouts! Oops.
• Cover well with purified water and let sit in a cool, dark place for at least 2 hours or up to overnight.
• Do not use a lid. Cover with cheese cloth or a new/un-used, cloth diaper. Wrap a rubber band tightly around the cheescloth to hold in place.

• Drain the water, rinse again with cool water. You can leave them in the jar to rinse.
• Tip the jar so any remaining water can drip out.
• Let sit in a cool, dark place
• Rinse with purified water 2 times a day.
• Do Not let them sit in water, they will rot!

This is after just ONE day! Aren't they cute?

After just 2 days.

The kids thought this was cool.

 On the third day we had edible sprouts for munching.

We let them continue to grow another day or two and plucked off the bean part. It is edible but I didn't like it much.

These were really good on top of my tuna salad!

Put sprouts on your tuna salad, you'll love them!

Try sprouts in a veggie stir fry!