Lettuce Varieties

Featured Pro: Tyler Florence
Category: Cooking
Time: 1:59


TYLER FLORENCE: Hi. I’m Tyler Florence here with a GMC Trade Secret.

Now, I feel that incorporating salad into your meals is a really great way to eat. It’s not just a diet fad or an appetizer. It’s a very contemporary way to eat. So next time, instead of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes, not that there’s anything wrong with that, try roasted chicken and fresh salad. It’s really light, really healthy, and packed full of flavor.

Now, here, all right, we have mixed baby greens, something you’ve seen on a lot of menus lately. What I want to do is show you some of these really beautiful lettuces that are actually inside of here. All right, there’s, like, baby beet greens. There’s really beautiful frises. There’s lollo rossa There’s mizuna. It’s packed full of flavor. Each one tastes different, but in unison they have a really wonderful flavor together; all-purpose great salad mix, a little light balsamic vinaigrette, some chopped tomatoes, and you’ve got a great salad.

Now, here this is either bibb lettuce or Boston lettuce, depending on what grocery store you go to. That’s one of my favorite lettuces. It has a sweet buttery flavor to it. And also you can use it as a really interesting vessel for, say, a light lettuce wrap. You can fill this with chicken salad, serve a couple on a plate, and you’ve got a really great, delicious lunch.

Now, here we have the classic Romaine. If you chop it up real thin or serve it in spears, this is the classic lettuce to serve as a Caesar salad with some great shaved parmesan, lots of garlic and olive oil. You’ve got a great lettuce.

Now, here we have the classic old-school iceberg lettuce, which is really great chopped up into wedges with a creamy bleu cheese dressing, crumbled bacon and croutons – really delicious thing.

And here we have arugula. It’s one of my favorite lettuces. And this would be considered a pepper lettuce. It has a light little sort of peppery flavor to it.

And also when you’re washing lettuces, what you want to do is put it into a colander, into a bowl of ice cold water. All right, and that way if there’s any grit on the lettuce, the grit will actually fall through the colander down into the water.

All right, so you’ve got this right here. You put it into a bowl, toss it up with a very simple light vinaigrette. I’ve got some balsamic, some olive oil, a little bit of sugar right here. And it’s a great way to actually add some salad into your diet.

I’m Tyler Florence, and that’s my lettuce tip.