Salads, Savories, and Smoothies:
Five Refreshing Raw Food Recipes for Red Leaf Lettuce
by Bridget Sandorford
Lettuce gets a bad rap as being flavorless rabbit food thanks to iceberg lettuce, the staple of most restaurant salads. Although iceberg lettuce is actually mostly crunchy water, red leaf lettuce deserves a category of its own when it comes to nutrition.
The Redder the Better!
The most obvious way to set apart red leaf from most other lettuces is (no surprise) its deep purple hue. This beauty is more than skin deep, though.
Colorado State University provides a nifty graphic showing that red leaf lettuce, out of all of its cousins—iceberg, green leaf, romaine, butterhead, and red leaf—contains the most antioxidant compounds. Moreover, according to LiveStrong, one serving (85 g) of iceberg lettuce only contains 9 percent USDA daily recommended value (DV) vitamin A and 27 percent DV vitamin K. Red leaf lettuce, however, boasts 127 percent DV vitamin A and 149 percent DV vitamin K.
These numbers are still smaller than those of raw spinach (161 percent DV vitamin A, 510 percent DV vitamin K, and a slew of other nutrients), but because red lettuce leaves aren’t as bitter as spinach leaves, it’s more versatile in raw salads and smoothies.
Local farmers markets provide entire boxes of the stuff for dirt cheap in the spring and fall harvests, so head on over! Just be sure to wash the leaves thoroughly before consuming in the following recipes.
1. Gourmet Red Leaf Lettuce & Shallot Vinaigrette
Ingredients:
1 large shallot, minced- 2 tsp white wine vinegar
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 3 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
- Kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste
- 1 large head red leaf lettuce
Directions:
Stir the shallot and vinegar; let stand for 10 minutes. Whisk in mustard, oil, salt, and pepper until blended. Toss lettuce with vinaigrette and serve.
2. Blend It and Mend It Smoothie Recipe
- 1/2 bunch red leaf lettuce
- 4 Red Delicious apples
- 1 Tbsp. ground flax seed
- 1/8 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 cups ice
Blend it!
3. Go Green Savory Recipe with Avocado & Lime
6 leaves red lettuce- 1/4 bunch of fresh basil
- 1/2 lime
- 1/2 red onion
- 2 celery sticks
- 1/4 avocado
- 2 cups water
Blender goes “Whiirrrrr.” 😉
4. Green Smoothie Recipe with Apple & Pineapple
- 1 cup frozen raspberries
- 5 leaves red lettuce
- 1 red apple
- 1 green apple
- 1/2 small pineapple
- 2 cups water
Blend, baby, blend. It’s a blender inferno!
5. Green Smoothie Recipe with Raspberries & Pears
- 3 sticks celery
- 1 head red leaf lettuce
- 2 bananas
- 1 cup frozen raspberries
- 1/2 Asian pear
- 2 cups water
You blend it right round, baby – right round! 😉
About the Author:
Aside from school and working part-time as an Assistant Chef, Bridget Sandorford is the resident Culinary Schools blogger where recently she’s been researching the best culinary colleges as well as culinary colleges in Connecticut. Her passion for food is only met with her passion for writing. She lives outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
Get Your Green On!
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