Best Microgreens for a Thanksgiving Salad (and When to Plant)

Every year the question comes: “What are you bringing for Thanksgiving?” And every year, as the growers in the family, we take the path of least resistance and say, “We’ll bring the salad.”

Is it a cop-out? Maybe a little, haha. But someone has to be the salad person, so why not bring a beautiful, homegrown salad instead of something basic? The best microgreens for a Thanksgiving salad give you real crunch, color, and a little bite to balance all those rich, soft, warm dishes, and they can go from seed to table in a couple of weeks, indoors, no matter what the weather is doing outside.

We have been growing microgreens since 2018, and this is how we pick the crops, plan the seeding dates, and put them in a salad.

Quick Answer: The Best Microgreens for a Thanksgiving Salad

Sunflower, pea shoots, radish, broccoli, and red cabbage are the best microgreens to grow for a Thanksgiving salad. Sunflower and pea shoots give you a crunchy, mild base. Broccoli adds a gentle crunch, radish brings a peppery bite, and red cabbage adds deep purple color. Most of these are ready in 6 to 14 days, so seeding about 16 days before you plan to harvest covers all of them. For extra holiday color, add beets, Swiss chard, or red garnet amaranth, but seed those closer to three weeks out because they grow slower. Red kale, Black Tuscan kale, cauliflower, Barbarossa mustard, bi-color amaranth, and arugula are other great varieties to mix in. Toss them with fresh baby greens or your favorite lettuce to make a fuller salad, and finish with edible flowers like violas and marigolds for color.

What Makes a Good Thanksgiving Salad Microgreen

Thanksgiving plates are heavy on soft textures and savory flavors, so a good salad microgreen does one of three jobs.

• Crunch: sunflower, pea shoots, and broccoli hold their texture next to roasted vegetables and stuffing.
• A little bite: radish, mustard, and arugula add pepper, and they work best as an accent rather than the whole salad.
• Color: red cabbage, red kale, beets, Swiss chard, and amaranth bring the deep reds and purples that make a holiday table look finished.

A simple plan is one base, one accent, and one color. Sunflower, radish, and red cabbage is a combination we would start with. If you want to browse beyond this list, our guide to the types of microgreens breaks down flavor and category for every crop we grow.

Our Top Microgreens for a Thanksgiving Salad

Sunflower: The Crunchy, Nutty Base

Sunflower is the closest thing to a salad base in the microgreen world. It has thick stems, broad leaves, and a nutty flavor that sits well beside roasted squash, pecans, and dried cranberries. It takes about 8 to 14 days and it is a heavy-yielding crop, so one tray goes a long way. Rinse the seed before seeding, and rinse the harvest to wash off any black hulls that come along. On our reusable silicone grow medium, we use the 1.7mm large hole version for sunflower. Our sunflower microgreens guide covers the whole method.

Pea Shoots: Sweet and Tender

Pea shoots are sweet, mild, and beginner-friendly. They take 8 to 14 days, and the seed needs an 8 to 12 hour soak first. Pea roots grip hard, so we prefer growing them on a mesh tray with no medium at all. They pair well with sliced pear or apple and a soft cheese. Everything about soaking, weight, and harvest is in our pea microgreens guide.

Radish: The Peppery Accent

Radish is our fastest crop, ready in about 6 to 10 days, and it is the most forgiving, which makes it the safest bet if your countdown is short. It is spicy, so we treat it as an accent. A small handful on top of a creamy or rich dish adds a sharp contrast. Hong Vit gives you vivid pink stems, while Rambo has purple radicle tips but is slower to germinate than Hong Vit, Long Scarlet, and Cincinnati. Some red varieties can stain silicone naturally, and it does not affect performance. Start with our radish microgreens guide.

Broccoli: The Mild, Everyday Green

Broccoli is our most-covered crop. It takes 8 to 11 days, has a mild flavor and a good crunch, and it tones down spicier radish and mustard when you grow or serve them together. It grows well on soil, coco coir, and reusable silicone. In most of our grows we use organic purple sprouting broccoli seed from True Leaf Market. The full method is in our broccoli microgreens guide.

Red Cabbage: Holiday Color

Red cabbage gives you deep purple and magenta stems with green and purple leaves, and it is one of the easiest ways to add color to a plate. It is a beginner-friendly brassica, ready in about 8 to 12 days. The flavor is mild, so it mixes easily with sunflower or radish. Our red cabbage microgreens guide walks through it from seed to harvest.

Beets, Swiss Chard, and Red Garnet Amaranth: Plan Ahead for Color

These are the slower crops, and they are worth it if you have the time. Beets and Swiss chard take 14 to 21 days, and red garnet amaranth takes 10 to 14. Beet microgreens have bright red stems, chard comes in a mix of colors, and amaranth has magenta stems. Grow all three on soil or coco coir. We do not recommend beets or Swiss chard on reusable silicone, because the hard seed hulls stay attached without a layer of medium to push through, and amaranth seed is too small for the 1.2mm holes. Our Swiss chard guide and red garnet amaranth guide have the details, and our seed compatibility guide shows which crops belong on which medium.

More Great Varieties to Mix In

If you want more choices for the salad, these are other varieties we would grow, and most of them are easy to fit into the same seeding schedule.

• Red kale and Black Tuscan kale: Both are mild, tender, and beginner-friendly. Red kale gives you pink and red stems for color, and Black Tuscan kale has a deep green, slightly earthy leaf that stands up well beside roasted vegetables. Most kale is ready in about 7 to 12 days, and both are great blended with broccoli or red cabbage.
• Cauliflower: Mild, a little sweet, and crunchy, so it works as an everyday base next to spicier crops. It grows on the same quick schedule as the other brassicas.
• Barbarossa mustard: A red-purple mustard with a peppery bite, so use it the way you would use radish, as a small accent on top of the salad.
• Bi-color amaranth: A slower crop that brings pink and magenta color to the plate. Seed it with your other color crops, about 10 to 14 days of growing, and grow it on soil or coco coir like red garnet amaranth.
• Arugula: Peppery and slightly nutty, and a natural match for pear, citrus, and shaved cheese. Arugula seed is mucilaginous, which means it forms a gel coating when wet, so spread the seed dry on the medium and mist lightly on top instead of soaking it. We prefer soil or coco coir for it.

The brassicas in this list, kale, cauliflower, and mustard, are the same easy family as broccoli and radish, so they are good picks if your countdown is short. You can see more options in our guide to how many types of microgreens there are.

How to Build the Salad

Microgreens work best as a topping or a second layer, not the only green on the plate. To make a fuller salad, toss them with fresh baby greens or your favorite lettuce. Tender baby spinach, baby kale, or a soft butter lettuce gives you volume and a mild base, and the microgreens add the crunch, flavor, and color on top. We grow baby greens in an outdoor greenhouse, and wasabi arugula is a personal favorite, so if you are curious how baby greens differ from microgreens, our four-stage comparison explains it.

For the best texture, dress the baby greens or lettuce first, then fold in a small handful of microgreens just before serving so they stay light and crisp. Here are pairings that suit a holiday table.

• Sunflower microgreens with roasted squash, pecans, and dried cranberries
• Pea shoots with sliced pear or apple and a soft cheese
• Radish microgreens on top of a creamy dressing or a rich grain salad
• Broccoli microgreens as a mild layer under spicier greens
• Red cabbage microgreens with citrus segments and a light vinaigrette
• Beet microgreens with goat cheese and walnuts

Add the microgreens at the very end, right before serving, and never cook them directly. Heat softens them and takes away the texture you grew them for.

Add Edible Flowers for a Pop of Color

Edible flowers are an easy way to make the salad look like a centerpiece. We love violas and marigolds for this. Violas come in purple, yellow, and white, and their small blooms sit nicely on top of a bowl without overpowering anything. Marigold petals bring a bright orange and gold that matches the fall table, and you can scatter the petals over the greens instead of using the whole bloom. Place the flowers on at the very end, after the microgreens, so they stay on top where everyone can see them.

Only use flowers that were grown to be eaten. Never use flowers from a florist or a garden center, and never use blooms that may have been sprayed, since those are often treated with products that are not safe to eat. If you grow your own, keep them chemical free. Mandi keeps our garden no-spray, and you can see how that works in our no-spray insect garden guide. Johnny's Selected Seeds is where we look for edible flower seed, and it is worth checking that a variety is sold as edible before you eat it. If anyone at your table has allergies, ask before adding flowers to their plate.

For more ideas, browse our microgreen recipes hub or the 36 Easy and Unique Microgreen Recipes cookbook, which includes a microgreen salad.

When to Plant: Count Back From Thanksgiving

Work backward from the day you plan to harvest, then add a couple of days of cushion. The last column below already includes that cushion, so it is the latest you should seed each crop. Slower crops go in first.

If your countdown is under three weeks, skip beets and chard and build the salad from radish, broccoli, red cabbage, sunflower, and peas. If you are seeding several crops at once, a tray clip labeler on each tray keeps the schedule straight, and our weight and blackout timing guide helps you know when each tray moves to light.

When you are juggling five or six crops on different schedules, the countdown is easy to lose track of. Microgreen Tracker, our grow-tracking web app, is built for this. Log each tray with its sow date and it shows the estimated harvest window, and web push reminders cover watering and harvest. It works in any phone or desktop browser and installs to your home screen. Our walk-through, Meet the Microgreen Tracker, shows how it works, and you can Try Microgreen Tracker Free for 7 Days.

Grow a Salad Blend in One Tray

You do not need a tray for every crop. Growing a few crops together gives you a ready-made salad blend, which is a good fit for small spaces. In one of our grows, a 10x20 tray of mustard, radish, and broccoli on reusable silicone grow medium, with fertilizer, gave us 161 g total in 8 days. Radish seed is larger, so seed it a little lighter than the small-seeded sections, and the mild broccoli tones down the spicy mustard and radish. Treat that number as one data point from our space, not a promise.

Here is what the triple tray looks like in our grow space.

You can find more tutorials in our Video Library. If you are growing smaller batches, the 7x14 OTG Microgreen Tray Kit is a good place to start, and broccoli takes roughly 15 to 20 g of seed in that size. Our free tray-specific seeding guide has rates for every crop and tray size.

What You Need to Grow These Crops

Seed

Buy seed sold specifically for microgreens or sprouting from a reputable supplier. True Leaf Market is our default, and we also buy from Johnny's Selected Seeds. Never use bird seed, animal feed, or seed treated with fungicide or dyes, since those are not handled to food safety standards. Our microgreen seeds page and seed quality guide explain how to choose.

Grow Medium and Fertilizer

Soil, coco coir, and reusable silicone grow medium all work for the fast crops. For the slower color crops, use soil or the coco coir we use. Coco coir grows need fertilizer, and we use Ocean Solution 2-0-3. Most quality soil mixes already carry nutrients, so soil grows generally do well on plain water. Our free fertilizer ratio guide has the dilution details. For the reusable silicone grow medium, hand wash it, order the size that matches your tray, and see our reusable grow medium guide for sizes and care.

Light and Water

Once a tray is out of blackout, give it 16 to 17 hours of light from a 5500 to 6500K LED, 8 to 12 inches above the canopy, and water from the bottom. A bright window can work, but expect leggier growth than you get under LED lights. Our grow lights and setup page and microgreen lighting guide cover the details, and you can browse the grow lights we love. For volumes and schedules, see our complete watering guide.

Harvest, Rinse, and Serve

Harvest as close to serving as is practical, ideally the day before or the morning of. We harvest with a sharp knife just above the medium line, and the Mercer wide bread knife is the one we recommend. The roots stay in the tray, because we do not eat microgreen roots. See our harvesting methods guide for knife, scissors, and trimmer comparisons.

Store the harvest unwashed in a container in the fridge, and keep it away from the back wall where it can get frostbitten. Rinse it right before it goes on the salad. Our guides to storing microgreens and eating microgreens raw cover the details.

Thanksgiving Salad Microgreens FAQ

How far ahead should I plant microgreens for Thanksgiving?

Seed the fast crops, which are radish, broccoli, red cabbage, sunflower, and peas, no later than 16 days before you plan to harvest. Seed beets and Swiss chard about 23 days out, since they take 14 to 21 days to grow.

What is the fastest microgreen to grow for a holiday salad?

Radish. It is ready in about 6 to 10 days and it is the most forgiving crop we grow, so it is a safe pick if you are short on time. Red Kale or Broccoli are also great picks.

Can I grow beets or Swiss chard on a reusable silicone grow medium?

We do not recommend it. The hard seed hulls stay attached without a layer of medium to push through, so grow beets and Swiss chard on soil or coco coir instead.

Can I grow microgreens for Thanksgiving without grow lights?

A bright window can work, and we have grown radish with natural window light only. Expect leggier, less uniform trays than you get under LED lights, so lights are worth it if you want the salad to look its best.

Are microgreens safe to eat raw in a salad?

Microgreens are harvested above the medium and the roots are not eaten, which is a key difference from sprouts. Start with seed sold for microgreens, keep your trays clean, and rinse right before serving. If you are serving someone with a weakened immune system, check with their healthcare provider about raw produce.

How long do microgreens last in the fridge?

It depends on the crop, but broccoli microgreens keep a week or more in our fridge when stored unwashed. Harvest closer to the holiday for the best texture.

Final Thoughts

You do not need a full grow room to put homegrown microgreens on the Thanksgiving table. Pick a base, an accent, and a color, count back from the day you plan to harvest, and seed the slow crops first. With 150,500+ YouTube subscribers learning from our tutorials, the questions we hear most are about timing, and this countdown is how we would answer them.

Just curious and want to learn for free:

• Browse our blog library for hundreds of free articles
• Follow us on Instagram at @onthegrowfarms

Ready to start growing:

• Pick up the Beginner's Guide to Growing Microgreens PDF
• Check out our reusable silicone grow mediums for a no-mess grow

Ready to take it seriously:

• Enroll in the Microgreen Masterclass for the complete training

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Happy growing!