Twelve microgreens are worth the space in your fridge. This post ranks them by how they taste, how long they hold up after they are cut, and what each one gives you, so you can stop buying the pretty ones and start buying the ones you finish.
We grow more than twenty varieties on around 400 trays, and we taste every one of them every week. The ranking below comes out of that, plus the harvest records that tell us which varieties are still good on day ten and which are done on day four.
Here is what you get:
- The twelve ranked, with an honest verdict on each, including the four that are easiest to grow yourself
- Real keeping times from cut and packed product, so you know what survives a week of normal life
- What to do with each one so it gets eaten instead of composted
How we ranked them
Four questions, in this order.
Does it get finished? A variety that looks good and sits in the drawer until it turns to slime scores zero. Our own sales say the same thing: the mixes named after a job people care about outsell the generic one, every month.
How does it keep once it is cut? This is where most of the difference lives, and it is the number almost nobody publishes. A thick-stemmed sunflower and a delicate amaranth are not in the same business.
What does it actually bring? Vitamins, minerals and the compounds that are concentrated at this stage. In a 2012 study from the University of Maryland and the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), red cabbage microgreens measured around 40 times the vitamin E and 6 times the vitamin C of mature red cabbage. Different varieties concentrate different things, which is the whole argument for eating more than one.
Can a normal person use it? A variety that only works as a garnish on a restaurant plate is a variety you will buy once.
1. Sunflower
Taste: nutty, juicy, with a crunch in the stem that no other microgreen has.
Keeping: the best of the twelve. Eight days in our Chef boxes, 11 to 14 days in a Select pack.
Brings: a source of vitamin E and vitamin K, plus iron, magnesium, phosphorus and manganese.
Sunflower is the only variety on this list that can carry a bowl on its own. Everything else is an addition. This one replaces baby spinach or arugula and adds texture at the same time, which is why it is the first thing we hand to someone who has never eaten microgreens.
If you buy one variety, buy this one.
2. Pea shoots
Taste: sweet and green, exactly like fresh peas, with soft tendrils.
Keeping: ten days cut and packed, the longest of anything that grows this fast.
Brings: folate, iron, thiamine, chlorophyll and plant protein.
Pea shoots are the variety children eat straight out of the bag, which solves the hardest problem in this category. Put them in a sandwich, on eggs, next to chicken or fish, or in a bowl with a citrus dressing.
This is the one to start a household on. It also travels into a jar well, which is why our first pesto was built on it.
3. Broccoli
Taste: mild, faintly cabbage, almost neutral once it is mixed into something.
Keeping: solid. It holds its shape in the fridge better than it looks like it should.
Brings: a source of vitamin C and vitamin K, and glucoraphanin, the compound the body converts into sulforaphane.
Broccoli is the variety people buy for a reason rather than for a flavor. It disappears into a smoothie, a soup added off the heat, or a bowl of anything. Our Detox mix, which leans on broccoli, is the one customers put on a monthly subscription more than any other.
Mild enough that you can eat a real quantity of it. That matters more than any single number.
4. Radish
Taste: hot and peppery, clean, with a finish that fades fast.
Keeping: seven days cut, the shortest of our three main crops.
Brings: a source of vitamin C and vitamin K, plus iron, magnesium and folic acid.
Radish is seasoning that happens to be a plant. A small handful changes a taco, a bowl of hummus or a plain piece of fish. A large handful is too much and you will not finish it.
Buy it in a small pack, or buy it inside a mix. A big bag of radish microgreens is a bag you throw half of away.
5. Red cabbage
Taste: mild, faintly sweet, with a mineral edge.
Keeping: good, similar to broccoli.
Brings: the variety from the Maryland study above, and the strongest color on this list, a deep magenta stem under a green leaf.
Red cabbage is what you use when the plate needs freshness. It also holds that color after it is cut, which most red varieties do not.
6. Kohlrabi
Taste: mild and sweet, a thinner and gentler version of broccoli.
Keeping: good.
Brings: the same brassica family profile as broccoli, with less of the cabbage note.
Kohlrabi is the answer for people who tried broccoli microgreens and found them too "cabbagey". Same job, softer flavor, thinner stem. It is underrated because almost nobody sells it.
7. Kale
Taste: mild. All the sturdiness of kale, none of the bitterness, because it is cut before that develops.
Keeping: sturdy, one of the better ones.
Brings: a source of vitamin K and vitamin C.
Kale is the variety that survives contact with warm food. Stir it into a pasta or a stew after the heat is off and it stays a leaf instead of collapsing.
8. Arugula
Taste: peppery, and stronger at this stage than the mature leaf.
Keeping: middling.
Brings: a source of vitamin C and vitamin K.
Arugula microgreens are a condiment more than a salad. On a pizza straight out of the oven, on steak, in a sandwich with something fatty to push against. Use half of what you think.
9. Mustard
Taste: hot. Real horseradish heat, and it arrives fast.
Keeping: middling.
Brings: a source of vitamin C, and heat with no calories attached.
Mustard is the most interesting variety here. A handful of it on a sandwich replaces the mustard you would have spread generously.
10. Amaranth
Taste: mild and earthy, close to young beet leaves.
Keeping: fragile. Eat it within a few days of cutting.
Brings: the deepest color of anything we grow, a red that goes all the way through the stem.
Amaranth is the one chefs ask for. At home it is a short pleasure, because it bruises when you look at it and it does not recover.
Worth growing. Hard to buy in good condition unless the farm is close to you.
11. Cilantro
Taste: intense. More concentrated than mature cilantro, and the same divide applies: people who like it will like this more, and people who do not will not be converted.
Keeping: fragile.
Brings: flavor, mostly, and it is slow. Two to three weeks to harvest, against seven to ten days for most of this list.
If you cook Mexican or Southeast Asian food and you like cilantro, this is the strongest form of it available. Otherwise skip it and use the space for pea shoots.
12. Basil
Taste: the sweetest and most fragrant on the list.
Keeping: the worst. It bruises on contact, it hates the cold, and a fridge is cold.
Brings: aroma that no other variety here comes close to.
Basil microgreens are excellent and almost impossible to ship. Basil is better grown on a windowsill three steps from the plate than bought from anyone.
Our pestos are pea, sunflower and radish, pasteurized, 51 to 59 percent microgreens, and they keep for six months or more. All three contain honey, so they are not vegan; the pea version also contains soy, and the sunflower and radish versions contain sesame.
The twelve, side by side
| # | Variety | Taste | Keeps after cutting | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sunflower | Nutty, crunchy | Longest: 8 days cut, 11-14 in a Select pack | The base of a bowl |
| 2 | Pea shoots | Sweet, mild | Long: 10 days | Sandwiches, eggs, anything for children |
| 3 | Broccoli | Mild, faintly cabbage | Good | Smoothies, soups off the heat |
| 4 | Radish | Hot, peppery | Short: 7 days | Tacos, hummus, fish |
| 5 | Red cabbage | Mild, mineral | Good | Color on a plain plate |
| 6 | Kohlrabi | Mild, sweet | Good | Broccoli's job, softer |
| 7 | Kale | Mild, sturdy | Good | Stirred into warm food |
| 8 | Arugula | Peppery | Medium | Pizza, steak |
| 9 | Mustard | Hot | Medium | A handful, in place of mustard |
| 10 | Amaranth | Earthy, mild | Short | Color, eaten fast |
| 11 | Cilantro | Intense | Short | Mexican and Asian cooking |
| 12 | Basil | Sweet, fragrant | Shortest | Grow it, do not ship it |
Keeping times for sunflower, pea shoots and radish are measured on our own cut and packed product. The rest are ranked into bands from the same harvest records.
What you are paying for
Microgreens carry a price objection, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a defense.
A live tray sold in soil looks generous. It is big, it is green, and it prices well against a small packet. Then you cut it, and you find out what you bought: the root mass and the growing medium stay in the tray and go in the bin. You paid for weight that was never going to reach the plate.
Cut and packed product is only the part you eat. Every gram you carry home is a gram that goes in the bowl. For the same money, roughly double the usable grams end up on a plate.
Then there is the second half, which is time. A live tray keeps growing after you buy it, which sounds like a benefit and works like a deadline: it gets leggy, it yellows, and past a few days on a kitchen counter it is worse than it was on day one. Cut at the right moment, cooled immediately and packed so the moisture is managed instead of trapped, the same crop holds for 8 to 14 days.
So the fair comparison is not price per pack. It is price per gram you actually eat, over the number of days you actually have to eat it.
Grow or buy
Four of the twelve are the easiest to grow yourself: sunflower, radish, broccoli and pea. They germinate reliably, they forgive a beginner's mistakes, and one tray gives you enough to eat every day. We will say so even though we sell microgreens.
If you are in the EU and want the fresh varieties, buy them from a grower close to you. Our fresh program runs in Serbia and it does not export, because a crop with a ten-day life does not belong on an international pallet. What we do ship is the shelf-stable half: the pesto range and the dried seasonings, both made from the same crops.
How to eat them so they do not go to waste
The most common way to waste microgreens is to save them for something special. They are not a garnish. Treat them as a green.
- Add them last. Heat destroys texture and some of what you paid for. Off the heat, on the plate, at the end.
- Use more than looks right. A restaurant uses a pinch because it is decoration. A handful is a portion.
- Keep them cold and dry. In the pack they came in, in the coldest part of the fridge, not the door. If they arrived damp, open the pack for a minute and close it again.
- Do not wash them until you use them. Water on a leaf sitting in a fridge for a week is how you get mold.
- Buy the size you eat. Our fresh packs are 85 g and 120 to 180 g on purpose: one household finishes them in two or three days, which is a handful a day.
Questions people ask
How many microgreens should I eat a day?
A handful. Our packs are sized so that a household finishes 85 g in two or three days, which lands at roughly 30 to 40 g a day. There is no reason to be precise about it. More is not harmful, and less still counts.
Which one is the healthiest?
Different varieties concentrate different things, so the honest answer is two or three of them rather than one. If you want a single pick, broccoli, for the glucoraphanin and because it is mild enough to eat every day.
Do microgreens taste bitter?
Almost none of them do. Bitterness in greens develops later in the plant's life, and these are cut before it arrives. Mustard, radish and arugula are hot rather than bitter, which is a different thing and it fades.
Can I eat them every day?
Yes. That is what they are for, and it is the only way the nutrition argument means anything. Pick the mild ones for daily eating: sunflower, pea shoots, broccoli, kohlrabi, kale.
Raw or cooked?
Raw, or added to hot food after the heat is off. Kale and pea shoots are the two that survive contact with warm food best.
Which lasts longest in the fridge?
Sunflower, then pea shoots. Both are thick-stemmed and hold water well. Basil, amaranth and cilantro are at the other end and should be eaten within a few days.
Are microgreens the same as sprouts?
No. Sprouts are the same seed stopped earlier and grown in the dark, in water, and eaten whole including the root. Microgreens grow in a medium under light and are cut above the root. We wrote out the full difference, including the food safety part, in microgreens vs sprouts.
Where to start
If this is your first week with microgreens: sunflower and pea shoots, a handful each per day, added at the end of whatever you were already cooking. Add broccoli in week two, once the habit is there.
And if you want to grow the four we told you to grow, we wrote the ten-day version of what we do here, minus the 400 trays. It covers seed density, the blackout phase, when to cut, and the mistakes that kill a first tray.