One Ingredient: Mighty Microgreens, Small Footprint

Photos by Michael Piazza / Styled by Catrine Kelty

“When we first started, 80% of our customers asked us what a microgreen is; now 80% know what a microgreen is. It’s a big change,” says Lisa Evans, co-owner of We Grow Microgreens of Boston with partner Tim Smith.

The growing popularity has led to the recent opening of the couple’s new urban farm in Hyde Park on a former city lot featuring a beautiful glass solar greenhouse where they can grow microgreens and edible flowers all winter long. It’s a long way from a hobby business started inside their home in 2015, and a nice local alternative for their customers at farmers markets, stores and restaurants.

Their newly erected greenhouse showcases some innovations, including translucent solar panels to let in more light, an insulated foundation and thermal curtain and venting with electronic controllers powered by the solar panels. There’s also a rainwater collection system that drains into two 3,500-gallon tanks in the floor inside the greenhouse for irrigation. Outside on the site is a walking path open to the public and, coming this spring, a farmstand.

“Microgreens make an ideal urban crop because of the micro size. They can be grown on a small footprint,” Evans explains. “It is vitally important that cities figure out ways to grow food within them so that residents have access to fresh, local food.”

Oliver Homberg of Boston Microgreens says, in fact, microgreens use up to 95% less water than traditional forms of farming. He focuses his business primarily on chefs and says the 30 restaurants he delivers to also benefit ecologically. He delivers microgreens in open, uncovered “living” trays, allowing chefs to snip for use over the week or weekend when needed with no food waste. He reuses the trays, so no plastic is wasted, donates the used soil to local community gardens and contracts with his energy provider, Eversource, to use all sustainable energy sources.

Though microgreens are now found at many farmers markets and supermarkets, both business owners say it’s easy to grow them at home if you can’t find a reliable source. Look online or watch a YouTube video—like Homberg did to start growing his first trays of microgreens, not long after graduating from Northeastern University. Evans says you can watch a segment they taped with “This Old House”—viewed nearly half a million times—in which her partner Tim Smith explains the steps to homegrown microgreens. The couple also plans to offer microgreen growing classes in their new space.

“The beauty of microgreens is you can grow them at home and harvest them as you need them,” says Homberg, who offers nearly 40 types of microgreens. “You can use them on almost everything— they have visual appeal, nice texture and nice flavor for any dish.”

Seeds for microgreens come from regular vegetables such as beets or broccoli, herbs like cilantro and basil or leafy greens including kale and arugula. The shoots of these seeds pop through the soil and sport a tender edible stem and the first few leaves in seven to 14 days. As you might imagine, the flavor of the tiny, tender leaves matches the adult plant, though in subtler ways. Pea shoot microgreens, for example, may offer a hint of pea flavor. Micro arugula is still a tiny bit peppery. If you are not a fan of kale or broccoli, you might find the microgreen versions milder and more tender. The difference between microgreens and sprouts (which are more familiar to the general public) is that sprouts germinate in water leaving the partial seed still attached, while microgreens grow most often in soil before being snipped (though they can be grown hydroponically), leaving the tender stems and first baby leaves for consumption.

We Grow Microgreens features about 20 varieties of microgreens with colors from bright green to a stunning magenta. The most popular with customers, they say, are the broccoli, kale, sunflower, pea, radish and amaranth, a grain-derived microgreen with purple, red, green and gold varieties.

The many uses for microgreens in the kitchen match the sheer variety. “I like the daikon radish in omelets; the sunflower in green smoothies,” offers Evans. “I like amaranth in salad with avocado— the contrast is very beautiful. And pea shoots are tasty wilted into a stir-fry.”

Microgreens make a fresh, visually interesting substitute for winter lettuce, which is often bruised and limp after the transport of more than 3,000 miles from California fields. And microgreens add wonderful texture and a little “green” to grain, bean and pasta salads. When you have microgreens in the fridge, you also have a new tool to use, as most chefs do, for beautiful garnishes, perhaps atop crispy flounder or a wintery beef stew.

The final upside is the nutritional density of these mini greens, which have higher concentrations of vitamins, carotenoids and antioxidants—anywhere from five to 40 times that of the mature plants. As Evans explains, the seeds contain all the nutrients of the plant, and the first shoots and leaves contain these nutrients in denser forms than larger grown plants, which also include more water, fiber and starches.

Now that we know what microgreens are, we can begin to appreciate the upsides of this more widely available ingredient: noteworthy nutrition, a winter crop that can be grown locally and sustainably— and one that is just plain fun in the kitchen.

Try these recipes using different varieties from the following local producers this winter, now easily found at farmers markets, farmstands and supermarkets:

2 Friends Farm, Attleboro
2friendsfarm.com

Boston Microgreens, Boston
microgreens.boston

First Leaves Family Farm, Whitinsville
microgreensandwheatgrass.com

We Grow Microgreens, Hyde Park
wegrowmicrogreens.com

This story appeared in the Winter 2020 issue.