What do you do with sprouted legumes and grains?

May 9, 2015 7:19 PM

I ended up with a sprouter and tons of legume mixes for sprouting. I've followed the growing instructions a couple times and ended up with..... sprouted legumes. So, now what? Our kitchen is vegan but we don't do many salads. Bonus points for creative uses (like gluten-free breads??) Sprouting mixes are diverse, including lentils, peas, peanuts, chickpea, mung, and a whole grain mix.........
posted by Jason and Laszlo to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Make soup. Or make breads with sprouted grains. Make patties to sautee for dishes. Make layered vegetable pies.
posted by Oyéah at 8:01 PM on May 9, 2015

Response by poster: Do I use sprouted beans the same way as I use non-sprouted ones?
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 8:04 PM on May 9, 2015

Veggie stir-fry. Bean sprouts are a great addition to a stir-fry. Flavor with any or all of soy sauce and hoisin sauce and cooking sherry and garlic and ginger and hot peppers and sesame oil. (Mix some corn starch with a bit of water and add to thicken the sauce.

Things to use:

broccoli
cauliflower
green beans
pea pods
mushrooms
scallions
bean sprouts
peanuts or cashews
bamboo shoots
bok choy?
celery

The bean sprouts get added last, because you should only cook them for ten or twenty seconds. (Otherwise they cook down and become limp and gross. They should still be partially crisp when you serve. And remember: the food keeps cooking for ten seconds after you remove it from the stove. So remove it earlier than you think you should.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:41 PM on May 9, 2015

Kwati, a Newari/Nepali sprouted legume soup. Delicious and vegan. Google will turn up lots of recipes, including one from the Taste of Nepal cookbook.
posted by infodiva at 9:50 PM on May 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

(Note: read the ingredient list for your hoisin sauce; it might contain wheat.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:23 PM on May 9, 2015

We make sprout wraps. Tortilla + tablespoon of hummus + chopped cucumber + diced tomato + sprouts + black pepper. It's a good portable snack/lunch.
posted by morganannie at 4:06 AM on May 10, 2015

I haven't tried it myself, but if you drink them, I have heard of using sprouted beans in smoothies.

Here is just one example - you can find many more with a quick search.
posted by schmoo at 6:12 AM on May 10, 2015

If you're really adventurous, you have the tools to make your own beer starting with barley grain.

You use your sprouter on the barley, until the roots are about half the length of the seed, and then you bake it in your oven, spread evenly on a cookie sheet.

The temperature and duration of baking is where all the magic happens, controlling whether you get a light malt or a dark malt or something in between. If you look online you can find basic recipes but the hard core brewers fiddle with them.

The malt grain you've just created gets boiled along with hops and then fermented, to make beer.

Among home brewers, people who make their own malt are considered to be really bad-ass.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:13 AM on May 12, 2015