DIY Bean Sprout At Home | My Lockdown Edition

How to grow your own Mung Bean or Mongo Beans Sprout at home

Vegetables are very important for our body as the main source of nutrients and minerals such as Vitamin C, Fiber and many more. However during lockdown here in our country makes it harder to buy for fresh veggies and ended to cook unhealthy foods like instant or canned goods. Due to shortage of budget and money, I look for some alternative ways on how can I produce my own veggies like this at home. I just buy some mongo beans here in a nearby store at our house and started to do my "Do it Yourself" Mung Bean or Mongo Bean Sprout.

Just a few trivia, Mongo beans here in the Philippines has 2 popular dish to made. First is the classic and all time favorite dish that's always present when Friday comes "Ginisang Mongo". The method of cooking is just like the other sautè procedure at first then making the beans to soft needed enough time to achieve the soup like thickness but not to watery. The second one is "Lumpiang Togue". Wrapped or roll with the Spring roll look like with generous amount of bean sprout that's sautè for few minutes with some added ingredients to enhance the flavors, then deep fried until golden brown. Crispy texture perfect match with vinegar, then you're done! If you wanna try for yourself how to grow your own Bean Sprout, here is the complete ingredients you'll be needing.

Several piece of clean cloth
A basin, steamer or any wide vessel
⅓ cup of mongo beans
Water

How to do:

1. Wash the beans with water then put it in a small jar or anything that bean can be stored.

Pour in water at least half way above the beans. Let it soak for overnight until then beans look bigger than it's normal size.

2. The next morning, wash it with water atleast 2-4 times until you don't smell anything bad or the water comes out clean.

3. Prepare your basin or steamer. I prefered to use a steamer for it was easy to wash and pour out the water after every watering session for your beans. Get your piece of cloth but the cloth should be wet first before placing the beans into it.

4. Gently fill the wet cloth with mongo beans. Then pour  ed in water. Drain for a while then cover the top of the beans with a wet and light cotton cloth. The cloth on top needed to be a lighter one for your beans can grow and sprout without any hindrances.

5. Put a cover for over all top of the steamer of basin. You could put any of your choice as long as no light or sunshine can surpass inside the beans place. Note: You should place the beans on a darker place. The more darker the place the better.

6. Every morning and in the evening daily check your mongo beans and water it. The water helps the beans to be more wet at the same time it can eliminate for smelling bad. Do this method at least 2 days after the first day of placing it on the steamer of basin.

The length of your beans really depend on you. Most people eat this between the period of 2 days. But since it was my first try to do this.

I've been crazy to extend it up to 4 days and I feel so satisfied and a bit happy since I was seeing the beans grow taller and taller each day. You can barely see the roots and the leaves are all yellow. Because of the photosynthesis, the leaves should look green under the sunlight but since I put it on a darker place it turns out into yellow. Some Chinese cuisine cooked the bean sprout with the roots for they believe it has a health benefits. But I prefer it to cut the roots. I wasn't ready to eat this with roots.

You can cut it on half and stir-fry, put some seasonings and add some carrots, tofu and your done. I missed to took some photos how I cooked this one, maybe next time I will share this on my blog. Hope this one can be helpful in this season that we are facing. We need to be productive and resourceful. Be safe everyone and stay at home!