Micro sunflower
Helianthus annuus · Seed
Top 10 pairings
Micro sunflower is the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) grown as a microgreen and harvested only one to three weeks after sowing — a thick, juicy stem topped by two broad, fleshy seed-leaves, cut just above the soil before the plant grows leggy. Eaten raw as a salad green or garnish, it tastes like a fresh, concentrated sunflower kernel: nutty, sweet, faintly green and remarkably crunchy.
Picking a good onedrag
Plump grey-green kernel, sweet and nuttyYellowed, bitter, smells of old paint
Pantry seedEveryday bestToast it dry until it smells of popcorn, then into bread, granola or a dressing. Crack in-shell seed and spit the hulls: swallowed they can choke or chip a tooth.
The kernel's colourGrey-green with a few paler or ivory kernels in it
Smell a pinchClean but quiet, the nuttiness gone faint
Hull, or no hullBare kernels, whole and uniform, hardly any split
Run a handful through your fingersDry, a little hull chaff and seed dust coming off
These cues are Sunflower seed's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.