How to make Sprouts at home | Home made Moong Sprouts

Preparing sprouts is again a weekly affair for me. I prepare sprouts twice a week as they are very healthy and rich in proteins. We prefer to eat sprouts salad as breakfast at least 2-3 days in a week and also in misal and usal and I usually reserve the hot breakfast variety for weekends. I prepare sprouts with whole Moong or Moth beans as they are quick to prepare and are good for salads compared to other beans as we don't need to cook them. Making sprouts at home is a very easy task but one should use good quality beans to make the sprouts. The climatic conditions play a key role in dictating the time required for sprouting. Sprouting time, in humid climate like Mumbai - moong beans would take 15-18 hrs to get a good size sprouts where as black chickpeas and other hard variety beans would take up to 2 days. Usually for moong beans it would not take more than 24 hours in any climatic conditions if you take the needed measures to prepare it.

I usually do not buy ready made sprouts though they are available in markets these days easily as I am not sure of water they use and also I doubt about the freshness of the sprouts. I buy alfalfa sprouts as I am yet to prepare my own alfalfa sprouts at home. Sprouts are very versatile and you can use them in various varieties ranging from salads, snacks like vada, breakfast varieties like sprouts poha, sprouts adai, sprouts sandwich and also in stir fries, gravies, misal, usal and also the steamed sprouts are used in various chaats like golgappa, dahi puri, dahi misal etc.

Try making the sprouts often and eat them to stay healthy. Eat healthy and stay longer!!

Check out few more DIY recipes in my blog:

• How to make Garam Masala Powder - North Indian Style
• How to make Green Chili Paste 
• How to make Ginger Garlic Paste
• How to make Paneer(Cottage Cheese) | Homemade Paneer
• How to make Rice flour at home | Processed Rice Flour 

Homemade Moong Sprouts Recipe:

Yields 3-4 cups

Prep time: 2 mins | Standing time: 20-24 hrs + Soaking time of 6-8 hrs

Category: Kitchen Basics

Ingredients:

1 cup whole green Moong beans (Green Gram/ Hara Moong/ Pesalu/ Hesarukaalu)

Water, to soak

Method:

• Clean the moong beans by checking for any stones or broken beans and remove them.
• Wash the moong beans 2-3 times and soak it in water (3-4 cups roughly) for 6-8 hours or overnight.

cleaned and soaked moong beans

• Rinse again the soaked moong beans and place them in a container or drop them in a wet muslin cloth or let them stay in the container itself.

moong beans after soaking overnight and drained

• If you are using container, cover it with a lid and place a heavy weight on it and keep it in a dark place. I used my marble chapati stone for it, but you can skip keeping any weight too.

covered and left to sprout for 12-15 hrs

• Alternatively you can place them in a wet muslin cloth and bring the edges together and secure it loosely and then tie it to to any kitchen rod or anywhere.Keep checking in between, if the cloth has become dry sprinkle little water on it. 

tied and hanged in a wet muslin cloth to let them sprout

• Keep it undisturbed for 12-15 hours.
• If you are sprouting in a vessel you can check it after 12-15 hours roughly but do not try to pop it over or mix it.If the sprouts are of good size the way you want you can use them immediately, if not keep it covered and undisturbed for another 5-6 hrs. It depends on the climatic conditions, in Mumbai it takes 15-18 hrs to get good sized sprouts.In colder places it might even take one full day-24 hrs.I would nto suggest you to keep for more than 24 hrs as it will make sprouts bit sticky.
• If you are using muslin cloth you can see the sprouts popping out from the cloth and hence you don't need to open it and see but make sure that the cloth would not become too dry in between as it will not help the sprouts to grow.
• Once the sprouts are formed nicely, use it immediately or store in refrigerator in an air tight container for 1-2 days and use when required.

Use the sprouts in various recipes like stir fry, salads, filling for chaats, misal,snacks, usal, gravies, sprouts adai etc.

Notes:

• If the sprouts become slightly sticky means you have kept it for longer than needed with more moisture in it.You can rinse them and use.
• Once the sprouts are formed you use it immediately or in a day or two, if kept for longer they might taste slightly bitter.
• You can follow the same process for various beans like Moth Beans, horse gram, green peas, yellow peas, white chickpeas, black chickpeas, black peas(kala vatana), black eyed peas(lobia) etc..basically any whole beans with skin. The sprouting time varies from bean to bean while the quickest one is moth beans which takes only 10-12 hrs and the black chickpeas and black peas(kala vatana) takes the longest 2 days, while the rest would be done in 24-30 hrs.

Now we have learnt how to make sprouts at home, so let us also look how we can use them in our cooking:

• Green Whole Moong Adai
• Sprouts Fried Rice | Moong Sprouts Chinese style Fried Rice
• Moong Sprouts Salad
• Misal Pav
• Golgappa/Pani Puri
• Mixed Sprouts Adai
• Sprouts Salad-Chaat Style

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