You can grow sprouts in your kitchen cabinet and, after a couple of weeks, add a tasty, nutritious crunch to your meals. Try one of these bean sprout recipes to get started.
Ordinary seeds, grains and legumes (packed full of natural fats and starches) are quite wholesome… but sprouted seeds, grains and legumes (bursting with vitamins, simple sugars and proteins) are even more nutritious. Start a garden in your kitchen cabinet by following these easy steps:
- Soak clean, whole, untreated seeds overnight in three times their volume of water.
- Place the swelled beans, oats, alfalfa or whatever in a canning jar with a cheesecloth or screen wire cover.
- Tip the container up at a 45 degree angle in a bowl.
- Set the bowl in a warm (room temperature to 90 degrees F), dark place.
- Flush the developing sprouts with clean water every four to six hours (twice a day — morning and evening — will usually work almost as well).
In three to six days the shoots can be added to salads, sprinkled on soups, blended into health drinks, baked into bread, used as meatloaf filler, enjoyed in stew or eaten a hundred other ways. Or try one of our bean sprout recipes below.
Omelette Au Sprout Militaristica
- Heat some healthy-type oil in a frying pan or on a griddle while you beat two eggs till your wrist is sore.
- Chop a small fistful of sprouts and grate or slice 1/8 to 1/4 cup of cheese.
- Spread the beaten egg on the griddle, dump on the cheese and sprouts and fold the egg up over the mountain of nutrition.
- Flip the omelet and let it cook till you think it’s done.
Voilà! A low-cost, high-protein, crunchy breakfast treat.
This omelet recipe is taken from Ed Zahniser’s article Good Things From the Garden in the Closet.
Quick-Fix Tasty Treats
- Grind together 1 cup sprouted wheat, 1 cup almonds or other soft nuts and 1 cup seeded raisins.
- Salt to taste and mix well.
- Roll into little balls and keep on rolling right through some grated coconut.
Chew 50 times like you should chew all your food. Unlike store-bought goodies (which decompose with 10 chomps) these sprout yummies just get better and better. A definite taste trip.
This healthy snack recipe is taken from Ed Zahniser’s article Good Things From The Garden in the Closet.
Crunchy Cabbage Stir-Fry
- Take shredded cabbage (about 4 cupfuls) and combine it with 2 cups of mung bean sprouts.
- Sauté the vegetables in 3 tablespoons of oil for about 5 minutes (until the cabbage is cooked but still crunchy).
- Add 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds plus salt and pepper, toss the mixture lightly and enjoy.
Serves 6.
From The Complete Sprouting Cookbook by Karen Cross Whyte, Troubador Press, copyright © 1973 by author.
Bean Sprouts Au Gratin
- Steam 3 cups of soybean sprouts for 10 minutes.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over a medium fire, blend in 2 tablespoons flour and slowly add 1 cup of milk.
- Keep stirring! When the sauce boils and thickens, mix in 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/3 teaspoon pepper.
- Stir until the cheese melts, then add the sprouts and mix well.
- Bed the dish down in a greased casserole, scatter 1/4 cup of cottage cheese over the top and cover the whole with 1/4 cup of bread crumbs dotted with butter.
- Bake this nourishing creation in a 375 degree F oven for 30 minutes or until it’s nicely brown.
Serves 4-6 people.
From The Complete Sprouting Cookbook by Karen Cross Whyte, Troubador Press, copyright © 1973 by author.
Soybean Sprouts Milk
Soybean sprouts what? Believe it or not, this highly nutritious liquid is very tasty as a beverage. It can also be used as a substitute for the cow’s milk called for in many recipes. It’s an excellent alternative for vegetarians and allergy sufferers.
- Just pour 1 cup sprouted soybeans, 4 cups of warm water and 2 tablespoons honey into the blender and whiz them all together for 5 minutes.
- Then cook the mixture for about 10 minutes over medium heat, while you stir it constantly.
- Strain off the milk for drinking or cooking… and don’t forget to use the pulp as a filler in meat or vegetable dishes!
From The Beansprout Book by Gary Courter, Simon and Schuster, copyright © 1973 by author.
Navy Bean Soup
This cold-weather favorite is faster cooking and far more nutritious made with sprouted instead of plain dried beans.
- For 5 servings, you’ll need 4 cups of navy bean sprouts and 2 cups vegetable or meat broth.
- Simmer these ingredients — along with 1 large chopped onion, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon rosemary, 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds, 2 tablespoons tomato paste and a bay leaf — until the vegetables are tender (about half an hour).
- Fish out the bay leaf and add salt and pepper to taste, also 2 tablespoons of margarine or butter.
- Half a minute in a blender will reduce the soup to a velvet smoothness.
From The Complete Sprouting Cookbook by Karen Cross Whyte, Troubador Press, copyright © 1973 by author. These bean sprouts recipes can provide inspiration for more bean sprouts concoctions!
More on Sprouts, Growing, and Recipes:
- Bean and Pea Cool-Weather Crops for Home Gardeners
- Heirloom Broad Bean Varieties
- Nutritious Soybean Recipes
- Sprouting and Growing Mung Beans in Your Garden
Originally published as “Sprouts … The ‘Perfect’ Food” in the January/February 1975 issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine and regularly vetted for accuracy.
