Sprouting Seeds: Grow Edible Sprouts in a Jar at Home

First, the thing we get asked about most: this shelf has nothing to do with cannabis. Every one of the seven bags here is food seed for edible sprouts, the kind you rinse in a jar and pile onto a sandwich. Nobody sprouts anything else on this page.

Soak, Rinse, Drain, Repeat

The rhythm barely changes from seed to seed. Soak in cool water for around 8 hours, then drain properly. After that it's a rinse and a drain twice a day, morning and evening, until the sprouts are the size you want. Draining is the step people rush, and it's the one that decides whether the batch tastes clean or sour. Water sitting in the bottom of the jar is what ruins a crop. The Sprouting Salad Mix Seeds are the easiest place to learn the rhythm, since mung bean, alfalfa, lentil, fenugreek and yellow mustard all sprout at roughly the same pace in one jar.

Jar on the Windowsill, Tray on the Counter

A sprouting jar with a mesh lid does the job, and a jam jar with muslin tied over the top does it just as well. Small seeds like Alfalfa Sprouts (Medicago sativa) Seeds and broccoli suit the jar best. Basil Sprouts (Ocimum basilicum) Seeds are the awkward one, because soaked basil seed turns into a slippery jelly coat that clogs a mesh lid, so sow those thick in a tray or propagator instead. Mung Bean Sprouts (Vigna radiata) Seeds will sprout happily between damp paper towels.

How Many Days Until You're Eating Them

Alfalfa takes about 5 days from soak to salad. Basil is around 10 days sown at high density. Mung beans get pulled when the shoots reach about 4-5cm, which is fast. Cress Sprouts (Lepidium sativum) Seeds can be sown all year round and want roughly 20-22°C, so a warm kitchen keeps them moving. Once you see shoots, move the jar somewhere bright but out of harsh direct sun.

Peppery, Grassy or Watery: Pick Your Flavour

Alfalfa is fine and mild, more crunch than taste. Mung bean sprouts are watery and snappy, the ones you want in a stir-fry. Rocket Sprouts (Eruca sativa) Seeds come through properly peppery, and cress has that same sharp bite in a smaller leaf. Broccoli sits mild with a faint cabbage edge. If you only want one bag, the salad mix beats buying single jars of alfalfa and mung bean side by side, because you get five flavours from one soak.

Sprout Safely, Not Slimily

Clean hands, a clean jar and fresh water at every rinse. That's most of it. Watch out for the warning signs: a musty smell, grey fuzz, or shoots that feel slimy rather than firm mean the batch has been left wet too long, and it goes in the bin rather than on your plate. Basil's gel coat is the one exception, that's the seed doing its normal thing. Our pick for a first run is the salad mix in a jar, with cress in a tray as the follow-up since you can crop it in under a week.