Sprout Salad

If I had a restaurant, this sprout salad would be on the menu. Especially this time of year. The farmer’s markets are absolutely booming with all kinds of greens, asparagus, favas, green garlic, lilacs, and strawberries. It’s glorious. I brought a good amount of mung bean sprouts home on Saturday and threw this together for lunch.

If you can’t find mung sprouts, no problem, you can easily swap in cooked mung beans, or cannellini beans, or any lentils that will hold their shape when cooked – French lentils (lentils du Puy), black Beluga lentils, etc. Another option is to grow your own sprouts! If there’s a good amount of interest in that, I can do a primer about it. Like sourdough, growing your own sprouts is a lifestyle lol.

Sprout Salad Ingredients

Here’s a photo of the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe – arugula, mung bean sprouts, nuts, yogurt. Avocado should be in there as well. It’s a simple salad to pull together on a whim. A couple notes:

Chive flowers: The chive flowers are optional, but they bring the pretty, so keep your eyes open for them, or get some started in your own garden. The great thing about them is you can dry the flowers after they blossom. Keep the dried chive blossoms on hand to extend the season. Here’s a whole page about edible flowers and another on how to dry herbs, in case you want more info on either front.
Sliced Almonds: I use sliced almonds here, the key is getting them nice and toasted. You can swap in another robust nut here if that is what you have – walnuts are a good swap, same goes for pistachios.

Sprout Salad: Ideas and Variations

There are so many good riffs on this general idea to explore. Here are a few top ideas.

Tostadas: Instead of cubing the avocado, smash it into hot tortilla straight off the griddle, pile the mung bean component on top of the avocado, add a couple little dollops of the yogurt and finish with this salsa negra – I wrote about why I love it at the bottom of this page.
Spicy Summer Sprouts: Julie mentions in the comments: “i made a riff on it – couldnt find the mung sprouts, so i used a crunchy sprout mix..put a little chipolte in the yogurt mixture, and subbed in some cherry tomatoes for the almonds. Not too bad, if i do say so myself!”
Vegan Sprout Bowl: Hannah’s version in the comments sounds fantastic, she says, “This plus brown rice was absolutely amazing…I will certainly be making this again (possibly tomorrow – I just can’t get enough!) and I made this with soya yoghurt strained through cheesecloth for a couple hours for any interested vegans!”
On Bruschetta: I’m always looking for ways to use the sourdough I bake, and the simple answer is often bruschetta. Here you can use the components to top grilled or broiled slices of bread – yogurt first, then sprout component, a thread of a strong citrus olive oil would make a nice finish.