Microgreens in Professional Kitchens: Elevating Culinary Excellence

From pub grub; delightful cafes, to fine dining establishments around the world, microgreens have become an indispensable ingredient. Their delicate leaves, concentrated flavours, and stunning visual appeal make them perfect for professional culinary applications.

Whilst fine dining chefs carefully place a leaf or two with tweezers on their crafted plates, cafes and pubs use larger portions of 2-5g each which represent full portions and deliver vibrancy in a flash to delight customers. Microgreens elevate every meal and communicate quality and care to customers through the eyes even before smell and taste seal the deal of a top scoring meal.

Chefs love microgreens for their intense flavour and effortlessness of use. Pound for pound, microgreens deliver more concentrated flavour than mature plants  and nutrition studies back that up too: a 2012 University of Maryland study found microgreens can carry 4 to 40 times the vitamin C, E, K and beta-carotene of the same plant at full size¹. From soups and salads to plated entrees and garnishes, or as portions on light nutritious lunches as well as for traditional hearty meals, microgreens work across every course and cuisine style.

Lost and undervalued dropped into larger mature-leaf salads microgreens offer their greatest value used as a salad or vegetable in their own right, and are as wonderful as a salad, very simply dressed, or in place of traditional vegetables for mopping up jus and paired with hearty food.

Microgreens first became popular in the 80s, notably with pea shoots, which have become very widespread, but the range has developed and more nutritious, interesting textures and 'architecture', colours, and flavours, now offer options for pairing with every dish. Aromatics like coriander for Asian cooking; crunchy, nutty sunflower shoots are versatile and more substantial; fresh tasting rocket lightens and cuts with heavier foods; radish 'seasons' and enriches strong protein-rich flavours; red cabbage, broccoli and cavolo nero provide nutrition, interest and flavour with soups and traditional hearty meals; and mixes offer options for every meal that even stand-in chefs can quickly, confidently apply for fantastic food in cafes and finer restaurants alike. Our 'Complete Salad' mix for example is a main component in its own right - a composed salad finishing delightfully a dish of a slice of sourdough bread with a protein for a quickly plated, wonderful course.

¹ Xiao, Z. & Wang, Q., Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2012, University of Maryland.