This light and refreshing Bean Sprout Salad takes only 10 minutes to make! It’s crunchy, nutty, and so addicting! It’s a perfect side dish for Asian meals!
Do you need one more side dish that goes well with Asian food? Bean sprout salad is a great side dish or salad recipe that’s very easy, economical, and healthy! I like serving bean sprout salad with BBQ, Japanese meal, or any Asian style meal. It’s great bento filler too if you need just one more dish!
Bean Sprout Salad – Namul ナムル
Namul (나물) refers to Korean seasoned vegetable dish. In Japan, we enjoy many Korean or Korean-inspired dishes.
The bean sprout salad is a pretty common dish housewives in Japan make. We call this dish Moyashi no Namuru もやしのナムル (bean sprout namul), the original Korean dish for this dish is sukju-namul.
My family enjoys this dish on hot summer days as I like to make bean sprout salad ahead of time and chill in the refrigerator before serving. Here are some cooking tips for this very easy recipe.
Cooking Tips for Bean Sprout Salad
1.Removing Brown & Stringy Roots
When you learned how to cook, did you learn to remove the brown part and stringy root part of bean sprouts? My mom taught me to do that when she asked me to prep bean sprouts.
Growing up in Japan, helping my mom in the kitchen simply meant prep work, not actual cooking. Maybe because I wasn’t so enthusiastic about cooking. I remember being in the kitchen (doing all the prep work) which was a chore more than anything.
Washing dirty dishes and drying them (no dish washer), prepping ingredients (like washing and peeling vegetables), wrapping hundreds of gyoza… I think my daughter is way more enthusiastic about cooking as a 9-year-old than I was back then.
After many many years later, when I was cooking my own meal in my apartment kitchen in the US, I realized that I learned so much about basics of cooking through my ears and eyes from those “prepping” days in my mom’s kitchen.
Back to the recipe. So what’s the reason why we remove those brown parts and stringy roots? It is because that bean sprouts taste much better without them. You may not notice the subtle difference if the bean sprouts were prepped with strong flavorful sauce or ingredients, but you will notice the cleaner flavor and texture when you eat them raw or with simple seasonings.
Recently, I did learn that the stringy part is nutritious. To me it’s the perfect excuse to skip removing brown/stringy parts, doesn’t it?
2. Blanch Bean Sprouts for 1.5 Minutes
This probably depends on each person’s preference but my suggestion is to cook for just one and a half minutes. After draining, the bean sprouts will continue to cook with remaining heat. You can adjust the timing slightly but it should be between 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Drain Water Well
You don’t want to dilute the seasonings, so make sure to drain well before adding bean sprouts to the sauce. Also, bean sprouts tend to go bad fast; so avoid soaking them in water especially if you want to keep them a bit longer.
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Bean Sprout Salad
Ingredients
- 9 oz bean sprouts (1 bag)
- 1 green onion/scallion
Seasonings
- 1 Tbsp toasted white sesame seeds
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil (roasted)
- ½ Tbsp soy sauce
- ¼ tsp kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; use half for table salt)
Instructions
- [Optional] Remove the brown part and stringy root part. I recommend doing this extra step when you eat raw bean sprouts or when they are seasoned with light flavor sauce. You can taste the clean bean sprouts.
- Rinse the bean sprouts under cold water and drain well.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add bean sprouts to cook for 1 to 1.5 minutes.
- Drain into a colander and set aside for 5 minutes as you don't want to dilute the sauce with remaining water.
- Meanwhile, cut the green onion/scallion into small pieces. Grind the sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle. Grate the garlic, or use a garlic press to crush the garlic.
- In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients for the seasonings and mix well. It might look little but it's more than enough.
- Add the bean sprout and green onion/scallion in the bowl and combine all together. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
To Store
- Keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days (but enjoy it sooner!).
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: The post was originally published on Jan 23, 2011. The images and content are updated in June 2017.
Delicious and easy! i learned something new too. grinding the sesame seeds with a mortar and petal really brings out the smell of the seeds. never occurred to me to do that before trying this recipe.
Nami! Grow the sprouts yourself from Mung beans in a container with some holes in the bottom (or a sieve with fine hole size). They are so easy and fast to grow yourself (I think kids would love it!) and it makes cutting off the bottom roots/bean so easy afterwards 🙂
Hi Sonya! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post and sharing the great idea of growing sprouts from Mung Beans! It’s a great idea!
This was absolutely delicious! Been eating it all week in rice bowls and with some pickled daikon as a little snack. Thank you so much for sharing! Your spinach and sesame salad was great as well. Very exited to try the black sesame icecream and cookies next!
Hi Madison! Yay! We are so happy to hear you enjoyed this dish!🥰
Thank you very much for trying many of our recipes!
Hey Nami. I asked my husband to buy me a bit of bean sprouts when he gets groceries just because of this recipe. Of course, he came home with 3lb of bean sprouts. Totally not the small quantity I requested. Guess I’ll be making a lot of bean sprout salad for a while. Lots of prep work to remove the roots. 😅
Hi Anges! Wow! 3 pounds of bean sprouts!😄
Here are Nami’s few of many recipes that use bean sprouts.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/spicy-bean-sprout-salad/
https://www.justonecookbook.com/stir-fry-vegetables/
https://www.justonecookbook.com/tan-men/
We hope you can enjoy the bean sprouts in many ways! Happy Cooking!
The bean sprouts really were the star of the show! Everything else was the supporting cast. I may have read to many movie reviews lately, LOL!
Hi Stephanie, Thank you very much for reading this post and for your kind feedback!
Hello
I love your recipes. I never removed the stringy and brown parts from the bean sprouts. I had no idea about this 🙂 I am removing them now and it does make a huge difference in salads. Thank you so much, this is a great thing to learn for me as I love bean sprouts. And now, even better.
I have tried a lot of your recipes and shared them with family and friends. You explain things so clearly and in a simple way too. Thanks again.
Hi Rejeanne! Aww thank you so much for your sweet comment! I’m glad you enjoy bean sprout and the tip about brown parts was helpful. 😀 Thank you for trying my recipes! xo
Cheers from Korea!
Thank you for the great recipes. I am from Korea and I love Sukju/Kong namul. I didn’t know Japanese people eat these namuls much because I never saw any namuls when I visited Japan. Maybe that’s because I mostly went to traditional Japanese restaurants.
However, I like Japanese cuisines and found this site very useful. Especially, Mapo tofu. I prefer Japanese version much more than Chinese version.
Keep up the great work!
Hello Myong-Sang! You will be surprised how frequently Namul appears in Japanese household… 😉 Yeah, it’s not a common dish to serve in traditional Japanese restaurants, but bean sprouts are cheap, and go bad quickly, so it’s kind of budget-friendly ingredients for home cooks. If you search ナムル レシピ (namul recipe in Japanese), you will see many Namul recipes that are probably NOT authentic Korean-style at all… we definitely love this dish. I think before it was a Japanese name that describes the dish (bean sprout dressed with sesame oil), but due to the Korean food popularity in recent years, people just call it Korean recipe name Namul. 🙂
Very good salad, … but I didn’t take off the roots and the brown bits: too much work ????
Thank you for trying this recipe Rolanda! Haha I agree with you, it’s a lot of work… that’s why it was my job when I was kid. 😀
This was really good. A perfect balance with one of your beef dishes that I tried. I’ll bee keeping this to make over again.
Hi Kazy! I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe! Thanks for trying this recipe! 🙂
Does this dish keep well? Like can I make it earlier in the week in advance? Thanks
Hi Agnetta! Beansprouts in general don’t last too long. You can make it 1 day ahead but you will lose the crisp texture that adds to the taste of the dish. It’s unfortunate. I’d toss last minute too, so you don’t get too watery… Either way, it’s best after you cook and chill for a little bit. 🙂
Hi Nami! I wanted to know what size bag of bean sprouts you use for your recipe? I have a 12oz package but don’t know if your 1/2 package is the same as mine! Thanks.
Hi Ben! I just happen to have the package in the fridge! I checked, and the package is 9 oz (255 g), so it’s 4.5 oz (128 g). Thanks so much for asking, I updated the recipe. 🙂
Just made this to go with dinner tonight! So quick and simple to make.
This is the third recipe I’ve tried of yours and we have been very happy each time!
Thanks for sharing your recipes with us!
(I added red pepper flakes for a little spice.)
Hi Tai! I’m so glad to hear you like this recipe! Thank you for your kind feedback! 🙂
Got a bag of bean sprouts and made this yummy dish. I like it so much it will be made often.
I’m concerned about the spouts that I got. They have tails that are a little dark and little leaves on the other end. Should I go thru them and snip of the ends before I put them in the boiling water ?
Hi Kathleen! Yes I would do that (I know it’s time consuming but it tastes and looks better). Glad to hear you like this recipe! 🙂
Oh it’s very casual korean ban- chan(side dishes) series.
This recipe likes almost all korean mom’s one.
My mom usually add some red pepper flakes on it.
Hi Renee! Yeah, I add Korean red pepper flakes for Korean version too just for us adults! 🙂 Thank you for your comment!
Hi Nami,
I really love this side dish! A great way to add an extra dose of veggie to your meal 🙂 I’m just wondering, does this keep in the fridge for a while, or should it be consumed the day it’s made? I’m just wondering if I can make a huge batch and store it in the fridge.
Thanks!
Hi Barbara! I am so happy to see a comment on this very old post. 😀 Thank you for trying this recipe! You can keep it for maybe 2-3 days at most. The water comes out from the bean sprout from being marinated too long so if you like that fresh texture, I don’t recommend to make a lot. You could make seasonings ahead of time and mix as you need too. 🙂 Hope that helps!