The Definitive Ranking Of Salad Greens
In salad, as in life, it makes a difference what you put on the bottom. I think I'm saying that salad greens are like pants. And some pants are ugly.
17. Spinach
You know what's great? Cooked spinach. You know what has the mouthfeel of dental floss wrapped around chalk? Raw spinach. GET OUT OF MY SALAD.
16. Curly Endive (a.k.a. Frisée a.k.a. Chicory)
Curly endive, unlike its Belgian cousin, has NO chill. It has the opposite of chill. Please avoid.
15. Radicchio
So maybe I once confused radicchio with red cabbage and maybe I made a coleslaw out of it anyway and maybe that coleslaw was so inedibly bitter that I'm still kinda mad WHAT ABOUT IT.
14. Mixed Greens (a.k.a. Mesclun)
Who even knows what the heck is in here? Whatever it is, it's ALWAYS slimy. If you want to feel like you're in a shitty restaurant in the early 2000's that's trying too hard, mesclun is for you!
13. Green Cabbage
Green cabbage doesn't have a lot of friends.
12. Green Leaf Lettuce
It's fine.
11. Red Leaf Lettuce
Like green leaf lettuce, but cooler, because part of it is red.
10. Curly Kale
I would tell you about this kale but I can't because my mouth is tired from chewing.
9. Belgian Endive
Endive is cool in the way that a European exchange student is cool; you may never be besties, but when you do hang, you feel like a million bucks.
8. Iceberg Lettuce
Go ahead, TELL me about how iceberg lettuce is lame and tasteless and "it's all water." I don't care and I will laugh in your face as I eat a gosh dang delicious wedge salad covered in blue cheese dressing and bacon bits.
7. Red Cabbage
Look at that purple! That is a purple of deep strength and also joy. You add a few shreds of this to a salad and it's like BOOM, INSTANT FIESTA.
6. Mâche (a.k.a. Lamb's Lettuce)
Ooh la la! So French! So soft and delicious!
5. Romaine Lettuce
Romaine is firm yet delicate, infinitely mutable, and great in all dressings. It is truly the Cate Blanchett of lettuces.
4. Watercress
Spicy, sassy, and just a little WiLd. The salad equivalent of taking off your gross hiking boots and dunking your feet into an ice-cold mountain stream.
3. Butter Lettuce (a.k.a. Boston Lettuce)
It's so GREEN and TENDER and refined! A lettuce for the luxury lifestyle.
2. Tuscan Kale
Leave that curly stuff for when you have time to cook the heck out of it; this is the kind of kale you should be making salads with. And no, you don't have to frickin' MASSAGE it, you just have to cut it into skinny little ribbons (a.k.a "chiffonade" ) and then put dressing on. The normal way.
1. Arugula
Arugula is fabulous because it has a secret superhero name ("rocket"!) and because it's spicy enough to be interesting and tender but NOT slimy and it gets along with literally all other vegetables. More like aRULEgula.