Did You Know There Are More Than a Dozen Types of Lettuces? Here's a Visual Guide & Recipes to Try Them All (2024)

I remember there once was a time when ordering a salad meant roughly cut iceberg lettuce leaves, a little red cabbage for color and some shredded carrots. A fancier "house salad" might have included cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions and croutons. Or maybe you ordered something that passed for a Caesar salad: romaine lettuce tossed with some kind of creamy dressing and croutons, crowned with a mound of grated Parmesan cheese.

Luckily, those times are over. As Americans have become savvier consumers demanding more from their dining-out experiences, our salad selections have become more varied. And I couldn't be more thrilled. In particular, our options for leafy greens have gone beyond the expected iceberg and romaine, and not only at farmers' markets but at grocery stores too.

Salad greens are loaded with nutrients like vitamins A, C, K and folate, which can help improve blood clotting, build strong bones and support a healthy immune system. They're high in antioxidants, which have a slew of health benefits including reducing inflammation and removing free radicals from the body to reduce cell damage, and may even play a role in lowering the risk of dementia as we age. Plus eating salads frequently can help you get your five servings of produce a day, deliciously.

Here are 13 types of salad greens worth seeking out, plus recipes to use them in.

Iceberg Lettuce

Iceberg gets an undeserved bad rap as being the most basic of all lettuces and low on nutritive value. But that's pretty unfair, since classics are classics for a reason! Iceberg lettuce is as mild, refreshing and cooling as it sounds, with a high water content that comes through in its flavor. Charis Neves, director of innovation and product management for Taylor Farms, says, "It adds crunch to garden salads and helps to dilute spicy toppings and dressings, like Buffalo wing sauce."

The outer leaves are big and flexible, great for wrapping burgers and sandwiches, but they get sturdier the deeper into the head you go. These inner leaves are well-suited to be used as lettuce cups. It's the lettuce of choice to make a wedge salad, and shreds up nicely to top tacos, burrito bowls and sandwiches.

Try iceberg lettuce in these recipes:

• Egg Salad Lettuce Wraps
• Chopped Cobb Salad
• Vegetarian All-American Portobello Burgers

Romaine Lettuce

"One of the most commonly used lettuce varieties, romaine is known for its crisp texture and sweet flavor," says Tanya Merrill, director of research and development at Little Leaf Farms. Neves agrees, adding, "Its crisp, dark green leaves are the powerhouse of salads; they have such a mild flavor and a lot of water content that the crispness pairs well with any dressing, from creamy to vinaigrettes."

Romaine is recognizable by its oblong shape and is often sold whole, complete with several rows of large, fluffy outer leaves, or as the popular multipacks of stripped-down romaine hearts. (Romaine hearts contain only the crunchier inner leaves.) This easily separable structure also makes them ideal for using as lettuce boats for chicken salad or tuna salad. Romaine is also sturdy enough to hold up on the grill.

Try romaine lettuce in these recipes:

• Best Caesar Salad with Crispy Parmesan
• Buffalo Cauliflower Tacos
• Grilled Tequila-Lime Chicken Salad

Butterhead Lettuce

"Many assume that the name of butter lettuces refers to a buttery flavor, but the name is actually used to describe the silky-soft texture of their leaves!" Merrill shares. Within this variety of lettuce, you'll find Boston, Bibb and butter lettuces. All of them open up like big, beautiful, glossy green rosettes and have easily separated, tender and wavy cupped leaves. These leaves are smooth with a soft crunch that stays uniform throughout.

Boston is the biggest of the three, and may have a tinge of deep red to its leaves, making it even prettier. Bibb tends to be a bit lighter and more compact. Butter lettuce can also be multicolored; the variety named Scarlett is gorgeous with its maroon edges on vivid green leaves surrounding creamy white centers.

Its shape and silkiness positions butterhead lettuce well to be used as lettuce cups for dishes like vegetarian larb or lettuce wraps.

Try butterhead lettuce in these recipes:

• Cherry Chicken Lettuce Wraps
• Air-Fryer Edamame Lettuce Wraps with Peanut Sauce
• Butter Lettuce Salad

Little Gem Lettuce

This type of lettuce is every bit as adorable as it sounds. Also commonly referred to as baby romaine lettuce, this is actually a misnomer since it is actually full-grown despite its seemingly miniaturized form. It's noticeably squat compared to its elongated cousin, and has a good leaf density that makes each Little Gem look slightly fat.

It's a little more buttery than romaine, too, but it's similarly crisp, sturdy, naturally slightly sweet, and typically sold in multipacks. You can also find the leaves already separated and trimmed in clamshells.

For the most part, you can use Little Gem any way you would romaine. Some people toss the smaller heads whole into a salad. Or, use the leaves as carriers for chicken or egg salad.

Try Little Gem lettuce in these recipes:

• Chopped Power Salad with Chicken

Loose Leaf Lettuce

For texture, fluff and volume, it's hard to beat loose leaf lettuce types. And they come in so many colors—green loose leaf lettuces, red loose leaf lettuces, like the stunning lollo rosso, and oak leaf lettuces—and all are gorgeous.

Just as their name implies, loose leaf lettuce doesn't grow in tight heads, which makes them tremendously easy to separate for single-leaf usage like sandwiches. Each head and leaf is fan-shaped and floats out from the central stalk in flowing ruffled leaves. The green leaf lettuce tends to have the most dramatic frills, along with the lollo rosso, sometimes referred to as coral lettuce (a subvariety known for its tighter curls). On the other hand, the colorful oak leaf variety has serrated leaves and starts as a semi-tight rosette before branching out into a loose top.

Loose leaf lettuces are a little nutty, with a hint of earthiness that underpins their refreshing notes. Their texture is tender through the leaf, chewy at the frills, and crisper toward the center. Despite that, it's actually more delicate than many other lettuces and bruises easily, so be careful of heavy-handed handling. Hand-tearing it is the best way to break it down for salads. Using the leaves whole is perfect for working into summer rolls and lining steaming baskets to cook dumplings in to prevent sticking.

Try loose leaf lettuce in these recipes:

• Apple-Tomato Salad
• Mushroom "Bulgogi" Ssambap with Spicy Ssam Sauce
• Lumpiang Sariwa (Fresh Spring Rolls)

Mesclun

Mesclun (also called spring mix) has become as common as iceberg and romaine used to be, and we are here for it. Typically packaged in plastic bags or clear plastic clamshells, this mix of salad greens takes a lot of the work out of selecting lettuce types. It's a medley of many of them, "essentially combinations of baby lettuces and other greens," says Neves.

Traditional mesclun typically had chervil, arugula and various baby lettuce leaves and endives or young frisée. Today, you'll find fun and colorful leaves of varying tastes and textures, such as green and red romaine, green and red loose leaf, baby spinach, radicchio, mizuna, red and green mustard, red chard, kale, tatsoi and even immature radicchio, balanced to create a half sweet/mild and half bitter/peppery profile.

Try mesclun in these recipes:

• Claire's Mixed Green Salad with Feta Vinaigrette

Arugula

Since we've eased out of true lettuces with spring mix, let's get into arugula. Specifically, baby arugula, as this is what's most often used for salads.

Arugula is actually a member of the brassica family, so it's more related to broccoli and collard greens than to lettuce. This clearly defined, oak leaf-shaped green with deeply lobed edges has become incredibly popular, wielding the power to punch up any dish with peppery pungency without a single crack of a peppercorn. Neves describes it as "light with a delicate peppery, lemon-like finish."

Merrill says, "While it has a more delicate and feathery texture than mature arugula, baby arugula can stand up quite well to creamy sauces and vinegar-based dressings. Sprinkle a few leaves over eggs to add some greenery and spice to your breakfast."

Try arugula in these recipes:

• Pasta Salad with Arugula-Lemon Pesto

Baby Spinach

Baby spinach is known to make appearances in spring mix, but it's popular enough to be sold—and eaten!—on its own. Unlike mature spinach, which is primarily used for cooking, you won't find it in its baby form floating around in bunches. Rather, baby spinach is usually sold in bags or plastic clamshells alongside arugula and mesclun.

Baby spinach tends to be a deep, vibrant green with a pliable, soft, velvety texture to the leaves, and shallow veins that lead down to succulent stems. The flavor is mildly earthy and vegetal, with hints of sweetness and nuttiness. Delicious in salads or cooked, you can also blend baby spinach leaves into smoothies for a dose of folate.

Try baby spinach in these recipes:

• Pineapple Spinach Smoothie

Radicchio

Radicchio comes in two shapes—spherical or torpedo. It's often in salad greens blends, yet it's never green. And while it's densely layered and crunchy like a crisphead lettuce or a cabbage, it's actually a member of the chicory family.

It is dramatically hued with variegated dark burgundy leaves that extend from contrasting white ribs. Tightly layered as they are, these leaves are easily separated into smooth, structured cups with ridged edges. Like any chicory, radicchio is bitter. However, it also has a velvety quality to it that balances out its natural spiciness.

Try radicchio in these recipes:

• Scallops with Radicchio-Apple Slaw

Endive

This extremely diverse group of chicories includes Belgian endive, curly endive and frisée. Curly endive is what you'll often find in salad greens. It grows loose and lacy like loose leaf lettuce, with dark green and distinctively bitter leaves on the outer layers before mellowing into more delicate, lightly sweet and considerably milder leaves toward its compact off-white heart.

Now here's where it gets twisty: when frisée enters the chat. This twisty, shaggy, bushy, stringy and crisp salad green is also sometimes called curly endive or, generically, chicory. (And in the U.K., it's just called endive.) No matter what it's called, frisée is fantastic, slightly bitter but milder than its relatives. It's green at the ends, but as you follow it down to the stem, it fades to pale yellow in a lovely ombre.

Then there's the Belgian endive, a cream and butter-yellow, densely packed, torpedo-shaped little head that's grown in the dark. This popular gourmet green is actually botanically classified as a cultivated variety of chicory, and it has all the bitterness we love of any veggie from that family. It's common to peel off individual leaves to use as little boats to make canapés with strong cheeses, or to scoop up rich dips like crab or artichoke.

Try endive in these recipes:

• Port-Braised Endive with Rye Breadcrumbs
• Wilted Greens with Warm Apple Vinaigrette
• Crab Cakes with Spring Green Salad and Lime Dressing

Escarole

Another member of the chicory family, escarole is often mistaken for frisée or curly endive. While it shares a similar leaf shape, slight bitterness, and crunchiness to frisée, it's significantly bigger and grows in a different bundle shape. Heads of escarole look similar to loose leaf lettuce. Their color graduates upward from pale to dark green, with leaves that are loose, broad and only slightly curly. The darker the hue, the more bitter you can expect that bite to be. Escarole is actually more commonly used in soups and braises, and unlike most other leafy greens, it holds its shape and color well when cooked.

Try escarole in these recipes:

Mâche

This pretty leafy green is as precious as it looks—easily bruised and wilted, and because of its priciness and rarity, often used as an accent to other greens. You'll recognize it as a small, low-growing plant that presents with cute, clustered rosettes that are actually multiple loose layers of spoon-shaped, slightly elongated, rounded leaves. These sprout from ultra-thin, tender, green stems. Mâche is bright to dark green. Some types are perfectly smooth, while others display prominent veining; sometimes the leaf edges are even and sometimes they may be semi-toothed.

No matter how it looks, mâche tastes grassy and herbaceous with nutty and tangy hints. Buy it with the rosettes still intact if you can, as that will protect the leaves from damage. When you rinse them, do it gently and under cold water lest they wilt. And when it comes time to eat these greens, add mâche to a salad right before dressing it.

Try mâche in these recipes:

• Shaved Asparagus Salad with Truffle Vinaigrette

Watercress

This healthy leafy green is no joke, despite its apt but silly official Latin name. Nasturtium officinale is roughly translated to "nose twister," a nod to its punchy, peppery aroma. While that may not sound particularly pleasant on paper or in a salad, don't be deterred. It's actually one of the oldest known consumed leafy vegetables and is among the most widely used greens in the world today—just not so much in the U.S.

The entire watercress plant can be eaten, from the hollow, water-loving stems to the oval or round, scallop-edged leaflets growing in bunches above them. Get them young or hydroponically grown for a milder flavor, and more mature or wild if you favor the pepper and mustard flavors.

Try watercress in these recipes:

Tips for Selecting and Storing Lettuce

Keeping lettuce and salad greens crisp and cool is a hot topic. All it takes is one wet or rotten leaf to ruin the pack, or improper transit and temperature control to turn a new leaf old.

When it comes to picking your lettuce, always go for the brightest, most vibrant greens. For lettuces like iceberg, romaine, butterhead and Little Gem, seek out tighter heads with no pink rusty streaks and minimal browning on the leaf edges. You'll also want your Belgian endives and radicchio to be tightly furled.

Loose leaf lettuces and escarole should be crisp and sturdy, not overly floppy. Avoid any with soft spots. Baby greens should be bold in color and dry. If any leaves look soggy, their days are numbered.

For most salad greens, moisture is not your friend. Whether your preferred method is using a salad spinner or air-drying individual leaves after washing, storing them wrapped in a clean paper towel in an airtight container can help prolong their peak freshness. For baby greens, layering paper towels throughout the container can help absorb leaf-destroying moisture.

More tips for keeping salad greens fresh:

• How to Keep Bagged Salad Fresh Longer

Bottom Line

Sad salads are things of the past! Changing up your salad greens can be as transformative as a new combination of toppings, and today's markets offer so much variety in terms of salad greens that staying inside the iceberg and romaine box—delicious as they are—is doing yourself a disservice. You can be adventurous while staying within the four main categories of crisphead, butterhead, loose leaf and romaine by trying varieties within those groups. Or branch out and experiment with arugula, mâche and more.