We’re Obsessed With Microgreens! Here Are Their Amazing Health Benefits
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Whether you’re looking to get a boost in your health, add more greens to your diet or spice up your cooking, microgreens are about to become your best friend! What are microgreens? Good question! A lot of people are unaware of the health benefits and nutritional powers of produce when they’re in just their sprout stage. These are microgreens and they hold all the nutritional density of the produce within a much smaller package. Instead of letting the plant grow and disperse these nutrients, microgreens are cut at the young sprout stage and are packed with all the good stuff! Oh also, these healthy-as-heck plants are awesome for even more reasons: they’re easy to grow at home, they ramp up your recipes, and they’ll be one of your new favorite snacks.
Easy to Grow
Believe it or not, anyone can grow microgreens at home! It’s as simple as having a shallow container with soil in it, sprinkling your microgreen seeds to cover the surface of the soil, then spritzing them with water at least twice daily. Pro Tip: I like to cover my microgreens with a weighted piece of cardboard for their first few days post-planting because this will help them all grow in a pretty, even fashion. Continuing your misting schedule regularly, your microgreens should begin to sprout up pretty quickly! Since the final result we are looking for is just the sprouts themselves, these greens only take 4-8 days to grow to their harvesting point. To harvest, simply snip your greens at the base and enjoy from there on out! This quick growing process makes it so convenient to enjoy fresh produce at home!
Health Benefits
Microgreens come in all kinds of cute little packages, and each type of microgreen brings new health benefits to the table. For example, wheatgrass (which is considered a microgreen) is one of the healthiest greens, and a great way to help with digestion. Overall, there are a lot of benefits that eating your microgreens in general can provide. So, here are a few of the big sellers:
- Boost your immune system
- Promotes heart health
- Can help ward off cancer
- Anti-inflammatory properties
- They pack a HUGE punch of nutrients (especially for being such tiny plants)
Ramp Up Your Recipes
OK, so the ease of growing them and their health benefits weren’t enough to get you running to get your hands on some microgreen seeds? What about the fact that they’re actually pretty tasty? I know, it kind of seems too good to be true but in fact, microgreens not only pack a punch with nutrients, they also house bold, delicious flavors. Nope, your broccoli sprouts won’t taste like broccoli, instead they’ll have a nice lemon-peppery flavor. Oh, and your sunflower sprouts? They’ll become your new favorite snack when you discover that they actually taste like seasoned sunflower seeds.
Snacking on microgreens on their own is pretty tasty, but… we aren’t rabbits. We can’t live off microgreens even though they are super good for you. BUT, they make the best addition to the recipes you already make on the regular. From salads to sandwiches to soups, pastas, sushi, and more, adding microgreens to your dishes helps boost their flavor profile and act as the secret ingredient to make flavors POP! I mean, check out how tasty these microgreen-included meals look!
Microgreen Varieties to Try
Now you’re sold? I thought those recipes would do it! And if you’ve been waiting for a catch and expect that microgreen seeds are hard to get your hands on, well then you’re mistaken. You can even find lots of microgreen varieties on Amazon! Yup, how easy is that? Here are some varieties you NEED to try:
Kale Trio
Superfood Mix
Alfalfa
Raddish
Broccoli
Pea
Spicy Mix
Who’s ready to join the hooked-on-microgreens club? Have any other favorite microgreen seeds? Let us know in the comments, and welcome!