You can make sprouts or micro greens in your kitchen for super cheap! Forget $4 at the grocery store.
You can make mustard, daikon, alfalfa and other sprouts, but my favorite are sunflower sprouts. Sunflower sprouts (or "greens") are slightly sweet and are sturdy enough to add to salads. They've got a good crunch too. I love them on strawberry salad.
Sunflower seeds are super cheap: approximately 50 cents a pound in the bulk section. Just be sure they're not roasted and come in the shell (i.e. they have the hull). So for just a little bit of effort and a few cents, you can enjoy deliciously fresh nutritious sprouts/microgreens.
How to make Sunflower Greens:
Soak 1/2 C sunflower seeds (in the shell) in water overnight.
Spread a thin 1/2-3/4" layer of compost/soil in a pan/dish (I've heard cafeteria trays work well, I use a large pyrex dish, about brownie pan size, 11" x 9").
Layer the soaked seeds on top. Optionally cover with paper or newsprint for the first day- seems to help them settle in to the soil.
Keep moist but not soaking while they grow. Takes 5-14 days to spout into sunflower greens. Don't let them go so far as to develop their second set of leaves- you just want them to have the 2 petals that came from inside the seed (see photos).
If their shells don't come off on their own, help pop them off them carefully with your fingers.
Harvest with sharp scissors, cutting close to the soil line (apparently a lot of the nutrition in sprouts is close to the root).
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