Do you love microgreens? These baby sprouts — just a few days old — of plants like basil, arugula, and chard have immense flavor packed into their tiny forms. Microgreens command a great deal of money at the store, and they are beloved by chefs, who use their intense flavor and delicate appearance to enhance expensive restaurant plates. But you can grow microgreens at home with nearly no effort whatsoever, and the payoff is terrific. Here's how, courtesy of reader Claire, are instructions for quickly growing microgreens.
Here's Claire:
I am constantly spending small fortunes at my local farmers market buying microgreens for my salads, so lately I decided to grow my own. In my teeny tiny apartment it might be the only thing I can grow.
I lined vintage tea tins with plastic bags, weighted down the bottoms with rocks, which also help with drainage, and then filled them up with soil. I took seeds out of my pantry, mustard seeds, romano beans, mung beans and sunflower seeds and let them sit on a damp towel for a couple days until they started to sprout. Then I laid them on top of the soil watered them every day and within a week I had gorgeous micro greens to put in sandwiches, garnish canapes, or simply toss into salads for an extra bit of spice.
It cost only a few dollars and took a week, but saves me trips to the market and serious cash once I'm there.
Such a great little project! Thank you, Claire!
→ Visit Claire's blog: Livia Sweets
Do you grow microgreens at home? Any favorite varieties?
More Microgreens
• What's the Deal with Microgreens? (And How to Grow Your Own!)
• Are Microgreens More Nutritious Than Fully Grown Greens?
• Product Love: Trader Joe's Organic Micro Greens
• The Chef's Garden: A Very Unusual Family Farm in Ohio
(Image: Claire via The Kitchn's submission form)
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how much light do they need?
ditto to amandarh's question... how much light?
Hi! I put them near two windows in my apartment, one with full South facing light, and the other that get's some only in the late afternoon, and both of them did really well. Thanks!
good idea. will this literally work with any seed?
I'm not sure if anything would work, but I've done it with mustard seeds, arugula, swiss chard, sunflowers, mung beans, and romano beans, to great success!
could i use mustard seeds from a spice market (or raw sunflower seeds), or would they need to be seeds sold expressly for growing?
I just used the old ones in my pantry and they worked beautifully.
If I can get my hands on some seeds, this is Monday's there's-no-school-today project.
I don't believe you would want to use seed packet seeds for microgreens - many are treated with fungicides. Seeds sold for sprouting are probably good for this though, as may spice seeds, if they will sprout. Some spice rack seeds won't sprout - I've had no luck with spice rack coriander seeds, for example (when planting to grow plants rather than microgreens or sprouts), although my seed packet coriander germinates in late summer/early fall. I'm anxious to try this microgreen technique with basil seeds sold in our local Asian markets as a drink ingredient. I think those should sprout, they get rather sticky or glutinous when wet.
a lot of spices are irradiated for sterilization, so things like coriander seed might not sprout (I had the same problem).
the seeds I buy for sprouting at the health food store work well and make great microgreens - arugula, fennel, broccoli, fenugreek, radish, cress etc. I grow them on paper towels in my sprouter and just expose them to light when they're ready to eat.