Fresh bean sprouts are a perfect addition to any Asian dish. They bring a delightfully crisp texture, a refreshing flavor, and a lot of nutritional value. Today, I’ll be showing you how you can grow your own, high-quality bean sprouts in 1 week with just mung beans and some common kitchen items!
How to Grow Bean Sprouts in a Strainer?
If you’ve always wondered how to grow mung bean sprouts at home but thought you couldn’t do it without a garden, this guide is for you! Growing your own bean sprouts in a strainer is extremely easy and rewarding. This is a great first step to growing your own food and it’s excellent way to teach your children about the life cycle of plants.
Cost-effective and fast. All you need to grow your own bean sprouts at home is a kitchen strainer, a plastic bowl, some paper towels, and a few handfuls of good quality mung beans. Your sprouts will be ready in as fast as 1 week.
The sprouts you make much fresher and Nothing beats the taste of a perfectly crisp, freshly cut bean sprout!
Choose High-Quality Mung Beans
My best tip for success in growing your own bean sprouts is to make sure you’re getting high-quality mung beans. Good quality mung beans have better germination rates and will yield perfectly fresh and crisp bean sprouts.
I highly recommend the organic mung beans from Handy Pantry. I get them from True Leaf Market. You can easily shop from their online store and have it delivered to your home.
I highly recommend springing for the slightly more expensive one if you want good quality mung beans. I find that the organic mung beans germinate at a higher rate (which means you grow more bean sprouts) and are less likely to become rancid. Low-quality mung beans sometimes lead to foul-smelling sprouts.
How to Eat Mung Bean Sprouts?
Mung bean sprouts are a staple in Vietnamese cuisine. At home, I like to always have a supply of these fresh bean sprouts, we like eating them with anything and everything! You can have them as a side for meat and rice dishes, in a salad, and with pho. They add a delicious crunch and mild flavor to any dish. Plus, they’re super nutritious.
You can incorporate them in Chinese stir-fry, toss them with sesame oil and salt for a Japanese side dish, or even make Korean bean sprout pancakes.
I hope you enjoy this tutorial on how to grow your own bean sprouts at home! So many of you have been asking me how to grow mung bean sprouts so I hope this recipe helps. Let me know if you tried it and what recipes or ingredients you want to see me cover next.
Here are step by step instructions on how to grow two layers of bean sprouts in a kitchen strainer:
How To Grow Bean Sprouts?
Instructions
- Rinse dried mung beans a few times until water runs clear.
- Soak ½ cup of dried mung beans overnight.
- To create a little gap between the plastic container and the strainer, you want to put a flat dishware under the basket. You can also use bottle caps – be creative. Doing so is important as it will allow some air and air movement and avoid any fouling or molding.
- Put the first layer of paper towels in the strainer; I usually use 2-3 paper towels per layer.
- Now add half of the soaked mung beans on the first paper towel layer.
- Add second layer of paper towels then add the other half of the soaked mungs beans.
- Now add the third layer of paper towels on top.
- Now water it thoroughly. Then drain the excess water that is on the bottom of the strainer. You never want to have water sitting on the bottom of the strainer.
- To promote strong root growth, I place a plate and some weight on top (in this case a can of sardines.. haha). This way, the root will grow into the paper towels and it will be easier to remove the roots at harvest.
- Cover the strainer with a dark cloth and keep it in a dark place.
- Water twice daily (AM and PM) – make sure to remove any excess water from the bottom.