TUTORIAL | HOW TO SPROUT SEEDS, GRAINS, PULSES, AND LEGUMES ๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ฑ
Greetings fellow food lovers. First of all thank you for all the love and support you guys have been giving me in the past weeks, months and years.
I also wanna give special thanks to @curie who is doing an excellent job at supporting the steemit community. The other day they picked one of my posts as exceptional content and of course, I feel very honored.
Since I got so many responses on that post and it inspired so many people to take up sprouting.... today's post is all about that.
And what a better way than to dedicate this post to the wonderful initiative #fruitsandveggiesmonday, made possible thanks to @lenasveganliving and @plantstoplanks.
Why spouting
Sprouts are not only super delicious, but they are also one of the most amazing nutrient-dense foods on our planet. Furthermore, they are easy to grow and don't take up any space. No garden needed. We will come back to the how in just a sec.
Compared to most veggies, sprouts contain up to 30 times more nutrients, adding much-needed vitamins, minerals, proteins, fiber, amino acids, and oxygen.
Furthermore, seeds, beans, grains, and legumes contain phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors in their outer layer to protect them from being eaten. Therefore many people are experiencing digestive difficulties or issues when they consume these type of foods. However, when soaked, fermented or sprouted, these compounds or anti-nutrients will mostly be neutralized.
In addition, when sprouting beans, grains, seeds or legumes many beneficial phytonutrients are produced and gluten or other not-so-easy-to-digest proteins are broken down to make them easier to digest.
Step-by-step Microgreen Sprouting Tutorial
Most seeds, legumes, pulses, grains, and some nuts can be sprouted.
Though you can buy fancy sprouting systems online, a jar with a lid and a few holes is the cheap and easy option to start sprouting your microgreens.
1. Picking the bean, seed, or grain (mixes are possible too)
Whichever seeds, beans or grains you pick, most of them use the same sprouting process. For this tutorial, I used mung beans because they are easy to source and cheap where we live.
Other examples you can use:
- Adzuki beans
- Broccoli seeds
- Buckwheat
- Red/green lentils
- Chickpeas
- Green beans
- Fenugreek seeds
- Quinoa
- Buckwheat
- Alfalfa seeds
Soaking, rinsing and sprouting times:
Though this might give you an idea of normal sprouting time, they will depend on the climate you live. Here in Cambodia we enjoy a tropical humid climate which makes sprouting go super fast.
โ Adzuki beans (12 h / 3-4 days)
โ Mung beans (8-12 h /3 days)
โ Buckwheat (3 h / 1 day)
โ Quinoa (3 h / 1 day)
โ Alfa Alfa (5 h / 5-6 day)
โ Fenugreek (6 h /3-4 days)
โ Chickpea (12 h / 3 days)
โ Lentils (8 h / 3 days)
โ Broccoli seeds (5 h / 5-6 day)
2. Gather the materials
To make things easier, take the lid of your sprouting jar and make a few holes in it. Rinse the jar thoroughly with hot water. Sprouts can take become 10 to 15 tile their volume so make sure to not add too many dries seeds, beans or grains to the jar. To give you an idea I used a 32-ounce jar and filled it with 1/4 to 1/2 cup dried mung beans. This fills the jar to the brim with sprouts.
Thoroughly rinse seeds, grains, legumes with water.
3. Soaking
Put the seeds, grains, legumes, or beans in the clean jar and add FILTERED water at room temperature. Take 3 times more water than the seeds, grains, legumes or beans. For even better results, soak them in lukewarm water (40ยฐC or 104ยฐF).
4. Let them rest in a dark place
After the appropriate soaking time, which is different for every type of seed, grain or legume (see above), drain water and rinse them with filtered water. Put them back into the jar without any water. They can still be damp, no need to dry with a towel. Put the jar in a closet or somewhere dark for 24 hours.
Make sure to pick a spot that is not too cold. Also, don't close the jar with the lid, cover it with a cloth or coffee filter, using a rubber band to hold it in place.
5. After 24 hours dark
As said, we live in a humid and tropical climate, so sprouting goes super fast here. You will have to keep an eye on yours as it may not look quite the same after just one day. No stress; Give them the time they need. You'll just have to rinse a day or two more.
6. Rinsing process
After getting there needed hours in the dark, rinse the sprouts with filtered water every 8 hours or at least twice a day. Use the lid with holes to easily drain the water. No need to put them back in the dark, just leave them on the counter in a warm spot, but NO direct sunlight!
After a few day(s) the sprouts will be ready for harvest. When ready, simply screw the lid on and store in the fridge to stop the sprouting process.
THAT'S HOW EASY IT IS. THANKS FOR READING AND GOOD LUCK. FEEL FREE TO ADD A PIC OF YOUR SPROUTING SUCCESSES IN TEH COMMENTS SECTION BELOW.
HAPPY FRUITS AND VEGGIES MONDAY!!!!!
FYI: For green smoothie tips, tricks, and recipes, download my FREE GREEN SMOOTHIE EBOOK HERE!
ALL CONTENT IS MINE AND ORIGINAL!
PICTURE(s) TAKEN WITH NIKON D5600 AND HUAWEI Y9
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That is indeed very easy. I was too excited to wait so I googled a bit and started to sprout mung beans, alfalfa and lentils. Just about to go to the shop and get some seeds to do my micro greens. I had cress at home so doing this one right now too.
It's good that you mentioned those soaking times as I didn't know about it. I wonder if it's an issue if you leave your seeds in the water longer than you should - let's say all seed you would leave for 12 hours/or overnight..
Thank you for the tutorial! From now on I'm not going to buy any sprouts at all! :)
Soaking a bit longer should not be an issue. Glad to hear about all your sprouting experiments. Good luck x
Thanks for sharing. I must get back into sprouting, I used to sprout grains when I was raising my kids, great for school lunches, even though they would get teased by the unhealthy kids! ๐
I hope you pick it up again. They are so good for you. Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers I might just do that it will help my arthritis Iโm sure.
You did inspire me to break out the jar for some sprouted mung beans this week again! I did broccoli sprouts last time, so it's always fun to mix it up and do something else. I'll have to take a current picture, but this was one of my last rounds of lentils...
It's been cooler here, so it does take a little bit longer. Well worth the wait, though. :)
They are so good right. Starting another jar today :)
Wonderful tutorial @amygoodrich ๐ I learned about sprouting when I was in elementary school years ago, it is part of biology or natural science project at that time ๐ well, because Im in Indonesia and we have same tropical humid.
Thanks for sharing this post ๐ abd Have a Happy Monday ๐
That is so great. Every school should teach things like that. Have a great day x
Thanks for the tips on sprouting.
My pleasure. Have a good day
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Thanks for the support x
My absolute favourite sprouts are mung beans, must get some going right away, thank you for the great tutorial @amy-goodrich!
Enjoy. They are good aren't they?
They really are, so glad you reminded me to get back to sprouting, enjoying it in salads!
Very educational and easy to do Amy. I should defiantly do it myself. I used to do sprouting a lot when we lived in a house. Now I feel kind a squished in this little apartment and keep forgetting to do things. So thanks for reminding me ๐ฟ๐๐ฟ
I hear you... Lucky they don't take up much space. Have a lovely day
This is so important. I'm glad to see you bringing this up here. Most people don't realize the importance of sprouting foods to make their nutrients more available. Really cool that you're educating others on this.
Thanks.. Glad you like it... Like you said not many peoe know about the benefits and it is so delicious too..