Chickpeas, lentils, soybeans, and dried peas: let’s sprout them all!
Spring is here, bringing a craving for freshness, greenery, and renewal. What better way to embrace it than by adding a touch of all this to our daily diet? But what if the little ones turn up their noses at anything that looks like a plate of vegetables?
Instead of cooking broccoli and carrots, let’s play at planting our own miniature garden. Who knows—maybe watching our little greens grow will make us want to harvest them and add them to our sandwiches!
Healthy and nutritious.
Vegetable sprouts are a true superfood.
Rich in vitamins and minerals, easy to digest, crunchy, and tasty, they’re used by top chefs to add an extra touch to any dish.
At home, we can grow them ourselves—all you need to get started are a few simple materials. If the idea catches on, you can buy a sprouter and different types of seeds to expand your indoor growing setup.
To start, you’ll need: a clear glass jar, a handful of dried legumes, a piece of gauze, a rubber band, and a little water.
Sprouts: An Essential Guide
You can sprout all edible seeds: beans, chickpeas, lentils, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds—or best of all, dried peas or mung beans, whose sweet taste is especially appealing to children.
The only sprouts that are not safe to eat are those from nightshades (like potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers). If you happen to have seeds from these plants, do not use them.
The jar method involves soaking a handful of seeds in water at the bottom of a glass jar overnight.
Do not seal the jar with a lid: cover it with gauze and secure it with a rubber band so the sprouts can breathe. In the morning, gently drain the water and place the jar near a window. Rinse and drain the seeds twice a day to remove excess water.
Microgreens in just a few days
Each type of seed has its own sprouting time.
Most begin to sprout within a few days and reach the ideal length for eating (between 3 and 5 centimeters) in about a week.
When it’s time to harvest, take a small handful of sprouts and add them raw to your meals. They’re great in soups and salads, or finely chopped and mixed with rice.
Our favorite dish? A toast topped with avocado cream and a fried egg.
Sprinkle the sprouts on top of the egg—their crunchy touch makes the dish tasty, beautiful, and nutritious. Give it a try!
#cresceregiocando #giocaconprimigi
*Article written in collaboration with Giovani Genitori
