The dessert that changed my salad game

A few weeks ago, I picked up “The Book of Greens: A Cook’s Compendium,” hoping to claw my way out of what the author, Jenn Louis, diagnosed as a “three-green rut.” I had been making predictable salads — kale, romaine, a grudging nod to cabbage — and the book, which catalogs more than forty varieties of greens, seemed like the sort of thing that might inspire transformation. At the very least, I thought I’d meet a chic new chard.

I flipped through it dutifully, flagging recipes like Grilled Cabbage with Miso and Lime, a smoothie made with radish tops and mango and something involving tomato leaves in dough — dishes that suggested a certain culinary restlessness, or possibly a home cook on the brink. But what stopped me cold was a photograph: panna cotta. 

It was a pale cream color, the texture of cappuccino foam. It wore ruby strawberries and a drizzle of olive oil like jewelry. I stared at it with reverence. 

It was, of all things, a lettuce panna cotta.

The exact opposite of what I thought I was looking for. (Also perhaps: the kind of dish you’d expect from a chef with an herb garden tattoo and a philosophy minor.) I had picked up a book about adventurous greens, only to fall for the plainest one. 

However, Louis makes a compelling case. 

“Dessert is probably the best way to wear your greens,” Louis wrote of the dish. “The herbaceousness of butter lettuce lends itself perfectly to panna cotta. There is a gentle bitterness that cottons to the fat in the cream here. Then come the strawberries and their bright sweetness. A finish of olive oil and this truly wows. Use the outer leaves for this recipe. They are often larger, and they are not as pretty on salads. The inner leaves are a bit more gentle and often don’t have quite the flavor.” 

This wasn’t just a recipe. It was doctrine: a working theory of lettuce, complete with a taxonomy of inner versus outer leaves.

That kind of specificity? I live for it. I’ve spent entire evenings Googling ranch dressing varietals, decoding the semiotics of suburban chain restaurant menus, pondering the subtle thrill of foods that jiggle. So when Louis turned her focus on lettuce — lettuce! — and took it seriously, I felt a genuine jolt of recognition.

Here was a tiny rabbit hole of culinary nuance, and I was already halfway down.

Eventually, that rabbit hole left me with two questions. Had I been underestimating greens in desserts? And more fundamentally: What does lettuce actually taste like?

In the weeks since, I’ve been living a kind of lettuce double life.  By day, I’ve been researching lettuce-based desserts like it’s a final project. By night, I’m tasting lettuce like someone meeting it for the very first time. At the grocery store, I linger in the produce section with the reverence of a botanist on sabbatical, basket brimming with romaine, iceberg, butter — anything leafy and remotely flirty. I pinch, sniff, nibble and nod like a sommelier of chlorophyll.

Lettuce being washed (Getty Images/ Maartje van Caspel)I’ll be honest: none of the greens-based desserts I found — watercress granita, radicchio brûlée — quite captured my imagination like the panna cotta. A spiced lettuce cake caught my eye for a moment, mostly because the author made a fair point: If we’ve accepted zucchini bread and carrot cake into the canon, why not lettuce? But in the end, I couldn’t quite get past the idea of a quarter-head of warm, shredded iceberg tucked into my cake bars. There are gentler ways to chase that texture.

Still, I came away with some notes:

Romaine opens with a crisp, faint sweetness and a clean green bite, anchored by the sturdy heft of its ribbed leaves. The heart softens — snappy, almost refreshing — like the green cousin of a cucumber spritz. Iceberg barely registers as flavor, but its crunch delivers deep satisfaction, especially the white core, which, when fresh, pops with subtle moisture like vegetal Pop Rocks.

Butter lettuce is the soft one, silky and a little floral, with a quiet nuttiness near the center that sneaks up on you like a secret whispered in a sunlit kitchen. And Louis was right: it’s the one that belongs in desserts. One slow weekend, deep into my lettuce spiral, I made the panna cotta. The butter lettuce brought something unexpected, a flavor gently tea-like, just a whisper of grass, with a bitterness like almond skin. It curled into the cream as if it had read the invite wrong, but everyone was too charmed to mind.

Drying lettuce (Getty Images/ Maartje van Caspel)Now I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve developed a new dream for the summer: a butter lettuce cheesecake. Lemon zest for brightness, a buttery shortbread crust to hold it all together without overpowering the green. Maybe crushed pistachios for some extra verdance, maybe a loose pouf of whipped cream. I want a dessert that barely registers as sweet. One that lingers like a scent you can’t place, but don’t want to stop breathing in.

If it turns out, I might even share the recipe. Who knows. Maybe we’ll have a few more greens-for-dessert believers by summer’s end.

It’s funny. This whole thing started because I was bored of salad. But somewhere along the way, I found myself undone by a leaf. Lettuce, of all things. So familiar it had nearly vanished into the background. But when I actually stopped to taste it — really taste it — it felt like something quietly opened up. Turns out, lettuce isn’t just lettuce. Sometimes, it’s a way back to wonder.