Baked lettuce – the only way I eat lettuce, ever.

Baked lettuce? It’s actually delicious, I promise.

I am not a fan of lettuce, or at least iceberg, romaine, cos etc. They all seem rather tasteless and mostly a mouthful of watery crunch to me. Ok in a decent salad but boring and not really much to get excited about. 

I watched an old cooking video from the 80’s a while ago and they served a meal with a side of baked lettuce. They didn’t say how they baked it but I figured it wasn’t hard to work out how to, and decided that maybe I would try it, and see if it improved my feelings on lettuce. It works. Beautifully in fact. And is so easy and you can dress it up with anything you want. I serve baked lettuce with home made croutons, poached or fried eggs, bacon or crisped tofu, with a vinaigrette dressing. 

I use a cos lettuce for this but you can use romaine. Never iceberg, that, I’m afraid is an abomination of lettuce and is only suitable for rabbits and other pets. My snails like iceberg, but snails aren’t that discerning. 

This serves two people: 

You will need:

Your choice of lettuce. Cos, romaine and baby gem work well. This doesn’t work well with softer leafy lettuce and not with iceberg lettuce.

Two tablespoons of good olive oil 

Salt

One clove of finely chopped garlic

A baking dish

Oven set to 180 degrees with fan. 

For this recipe I use two full heads of cos lettuce washed but then let it dry. 

Chop the ends off (the snails here get that!) and place in a baking dish. 

Take two tablespoons of good olive oil and mix a crushed and finely chopped clove of garlic and a pinch of salt into the oil. 

Pour the oil mix over the lettuce in a baking dish and gently toss so the oil coats the lettuce. 

Bake in your preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. 

The lettuce will soften and will char around the edges but tastes amazing and is vastly improved from its original form. 

Eat straight away with whatever you like to accompany it. 

Who said lettuce couldn’t be baked?