Growing Your Own Fresh Sprouts

I have one of those simple little jar sprouters, and i make my own fresh sprouts. My favorite is fenugreek sprouts, which are much like alfalfa sprouts, but they are more robust, and have a spicier flavor, whereas (to me anyway) the alfalfa sprouts seem wimpier. Kind of like the difference between a watery iceberg lettuce and a rich green leaf of Romaine.
Sprouts are so easy to make, only take a few days to grow, and have about 30 times the nourishment for you that just eating the unsprouted seeds would have.
My sprouter is just an oversized quart jar, and a plastic ring lid with a fine screen in it. I put in a couple tablespoons of the seeds, add warmish water, and leave it to soak over night.
the next morning the water will be slightly colored, and has nutrients in it. I use that to water one of my houseplants.
After that, you just rinse the sprouts in fresh water twice a day, and let them grow. I put mine in the kitchen windowsill where they get plenty of sun and turn a beautiful shade of green.
A quick rinse in the colander will wash off any seeds husks, and they are ready to be eaten and stored in the refrigerator.
Two tablespoons of fenugreek seeds makes over a quart of tightly packed fresh sprouts. If you enjoy sprouts, growing your own is a great way to have fresh ones.
Here is a picture of a sprouter similar to mine (mine is just an older version).

 

I make sprouts quite a bit, but I just use a mayonnaise jar with a couple of holes in the lid - or cheesecloth. I use them in place of lettuce in salads, since lettuce has always seemed like a filler food, devoid of taste or nutrition. Sprouts work well there. I will use them in soups sometimes too, but mostly salads.

 

@Pat Baker What I usually do with the fenugreek sprouts is use them in salads (like Ken mentioned), and also on sandwiches. Yesterday, I had a sprout and avocado sandwich, and it was scrumptious !
I do use lettuce (romaine preferably) in my salads, but I also like to add sprouts.
I have found that the tiny sprouts like fenugreek and alfalfa sprouts just turn into little stringy bits when cooked; but bean sprouts are a larger sprout, and are improved by light cooking, in my opinion.
Another sprout that i really enjoy, and which is very simple to sprout, is lentil sprouts. Even if you do not like the taste of cooked lentils; you may enjoy lentil sprouts. They taste more like eating a fresh raw pea than anything I can think of to compare them to. They are a mid-size sprout, and I use them either raw in salads or lightly cooked with scrambled eggs.
Since both beans and lentils are relatively inexpensive, and the sprouts are about 30 times more nourishing than just eating the bean or lentil cooked (plus, a few tablespoons makes a whole jar of delicious sprouts); I think that they are an excellent item to add into one's food supply.
The dry beans/seeds keep indefinitely; so you can store them and sprout fresh greens as you want them.

 

This time I am going to try something different with my fenugreek sprouts. I was reading a recipe for making flatbread using quinoa and chia seeds, and want to try it, and thought I would also make some fenugreek sprouts to put in it. I will take some of the fenugreek out as soon as they are showing a good sprout, and use those in the flatbread, and let the rest of the sprouts grow to use in my flatbread veggie gyro.
I have the quinoa and fenugreek soaking now, so it will be a couple of days before I will be able to try making the flatbread with it.

 

I watched a couple of vids on using those sprout jars. It looks interesting, and healthy.

Sadly, I have the attention span of a flea and got sidetracked. Maybe I'll get a couple of those lids.

 

Sprouting is a great way to have fresh greens year around, and you know they have not been sprayed or contaminated in any way, because you grow them yourself.
I also like lentil sprouts, but the fenugreek is my favorite, and the one that I usually sprout. It is pretty simple, and especially with the little plastic sprouted lids, which work with any size wide mouth mason jar.
I add the sprout seeds, warm water and leave it to soak overnight. The next day, I use the sprout water for my plants, and then after that I rinse and drain morning and night. Once the sprouts start turning color, I leave the jar sideways in the window sill, so that they green up really well.
Before I use them, I rinse off the seed covers, which pop off as the seed sprouts.

If I am making bean or lentil sprouts, I keep those out of the sunlight because it makes them tough and bitter.

 

@Yvonne Smith

I like the idea of making my own sprouts. I used to eat bean sprouts before they became a possible E. Coli source unless they were cooked.

 

MOst of the beans and lentils that you buy at the grocery store will sprout, so you do not even have to buy the expensive sprouting seeds. I took part of a bag of store-bought red beans out and planted them this summer, and we have small beans growing on the plants now, and should be eating our fresh green beans maybe by next week.
The fenugreek, I buy from amazon in a 5 lb bag, and it lasts forever, and I DO mean forever ! I also like to add some of the lentils and fenugreek to brown rice when I am cooking that, and the fenugreek really adds to the flavor of the rice, too.
You can also make nice micro greens with the lentils, fenugreek, and even raw sunflower seeds. Just put them in a tray on some paper towels and spray them every day and you will get nice micro greens.

 

I sprouted store-bought beans when I was a kid. My chemistry set had a hydroponics set in it.

I can imagine what you mean about a quantity of fenugreek seeds. They're like confetti...50 years old and still finding some from that 30th birthday party! Sneaky little buggers.

 

I ordered a tray sprouter from Amazon, and I am going to start sprouting some of the larger seeds and legumes in the tray. The sprouting jar is great for small seeds like alfalfa or the fenugreek, but for bean sprouts, it is just way too small.
I want to try making micro greens from some of the bean and lentil sprouts, too. I have not tried that except maybe once before, but they turned out great. I had bought a bag of sunflower seeds for birds, and I put them in a baking pan on a paper towel, and kept them sprayed down. They sprouted and grew just great, and once the seed casing fell off, they were easy to snip off and eat the greens in my salads.

 

I have my first “crop” of micro greens growing in the new sprouting tray. It is amazing how a half cup of lentil can develop into so much greens !
Here is a closeup, and they have been sprouting for about 2 days now.

 

It has been about a week total, since I soaked the lentils overnight before putting them into the sprouting tray. they are several inches tall now, and I want to harvest them today and see how they taste.
It is amazing how much fresh greens can come from a dinky half cup of dry lentils !

 

If it were legal here, I would probably try sprouting some. Cannabis greens are supposed to be very healthy and a lot more healing than the CBD oil that is so costly to buy, and definitely more healthy than smoking it would be.