Receta How To Sprout Mung Beans / Lentils
I’m forever indebted to my younger son’s teacher for making him eat sprouts at last. I can’t thank her enough and words fail me. As many of you know how good sprouts are for you and the importance of its health benefits only increase manifold, especially if you happen be a vegetarian or vegan and depend on legumes and lentils for your day to day protein needs. Sprouting at home is one of the easiest thing that even your kid can do. These Mung Beans were sprouted by my kid.
Though I did not want to post this one as it is not even a recipe, I just wanted to do it as a token of appreciation for my boy. I have had my share of lecturing my kid on how good, sprouts are for him, but they fell on deaf ears until 2 weeks ago his teacher gave a project asking the class to bring mung beans which they had sprouted all by themselves.
I explained him how to do that and after it sprouted he asked me if it safe to taste just one. What do you think my reply was? He is more than welcome to the entire lot. He developed a love for it immediately and started eating it raw and for the past 2 weeks he had been eating a handful of raw sprouts daily and I’m a happy mom. Now, it has become his job to prepare the beans for sprouting daily and all he does is empty the sprouts into his snacks box and takes it to school daily to be eaten during the break time.
- How to Sprout Mung Beans for Single Serve
- Prep time: 5 mins | Soak time: 4-8 hours | Sprouting time: 2-3 days
- Ingredients:
- Mung Beans – 1/4 cup
- Water – to rinse and soak
Mason Jar
A piece of cloth to cover the mouth of the jar
A rubber band to hold the cloth in place.
Instructions:
1. Place the Mung beans in a jar. Pour water and rinse well. Repeat 2-3 times if necessary till the water runs clear.
2. Add water till 3/4 the bottle or upto the brim and close with the lid. Let it soak for 4-8 hours. This will depend on the climate and humidity of the place you live.
3. The seeds after soaking will be enlarged in size and as you can see they had absorbed the water and had come to the brim of the bottle.
4. Drain the water. Our work is done now and the rest of the job is left to Mother Nature to weave her magic.
5. Place the piece of cloth over the bottle mouth covering it fully and place a rubber band around the cloth to keep it in place. You can use a cotton cloth, a burlap, muslin cloth, a plastic sheet in which you had poked enough holes, or you can even poke holes all over the lid of the bottle/jar and you use. The beans need air to breathe so that it could sprout.
6. Place the bottle in a dark place. I left it on my kitchen counter itself and after 5-8 hours you can see small sprouts peeking out of the beans.
7. If you want the sprouts anywhere between 1/2 to 1 inch in length, let it rest for 1 more day and you can have sprouts like shown in the picture. Just make sure to rinse the sprouts and drain the water as it will keep the beans moist and helps in sprouting further. Do not let it go dry as it will kill the sprouting process.
8. Sprouted beans are ready to use as you wish. Make sure you store the sprouted beans in a moist area. I kept it in the fridge and also make sure to use it within the next day or two when it is still good and full of nutritive values.
9. Sprouting at home is a very healthy option than buying it from super market aisles as you never get to know whether clean water has been used for the process and if they had been allowed to sprout in hygienic conditions.
Notes:
1. You can also tie the soaked beans in a moist cloth and let it sprout.
2. You can sprout any beans following the same method. But of course the sprouting time will vary with each bean.