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Inspired by a well-known New York eatery, this groundbreaking method transforms typically wasted external salad greens into an luxurious herbaceous emulsion. This is a smart approach to reduce food waste while creating something delicious and flexible.

Why Use External Lettuce Leaves?

Those external greens serve as nature’s natural packaging, shielding the delicate inner leaves. Although composting produce scraps is a fundamental zero-waste practice, finding creative uses for them is additionally impactful. Converting excess food into fertile compost avoids landfill buildup, where it can emit greenhouse gases, a powerful climate concern.

This is rather innovative when you think about it: produce rots and transforms into the perfect growing medium to feed further crops, thereby completing this loop and respecting nature’s process of growth.

Yet, given more than 30% surplus produce being produced than required, using valuable ingredients efficiently is essential. Reducing leftovers not only saves cash but also supports the more sustainable way of living.

This Herb-Infused “Mayonnaise” Recipe

This versatile formula works with any type of salad greens and seeds. Through using a entire egg, one avoid the need to use up the leftover egg white. This result is an smooth, rich dressing that works beautifully with greens, grilled vegetables, grilled poultry, noodles, or rice.

Serves two

For the Green “Mayonnaise” (Makes about 200 grams)

• 100 grams unsalted butter
• 50 grams outer salad greens from two little gems, washed and dried
• 20 grams peeled salted nuts – light-colored nuts such as blanched almonds help keep the vivid color, but any nuts will do
• One medium whole egg

For the Salad

• Two romaine or butter lettuces, halved lengthways
• Cold-pressed oil, as needed
• Lemon juice or white-wine vinegar, as desired
• One small bunch fresh greens (such as dill), leaves left intact, stalks thinly minced

Steps

First making the mayonnaise. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, add the outer salad greens, place a lid and wilt for approximately a minute, mixing a couple times, until they’ve softened. Transfer this mixture into the jug of an stick processor, include the nuts and whole egg, then blend until smooth. If needed, add extra nuts to get the thick consistency. Keep in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to three days.

For prepare the salad, drizzle each lettuce half with olive oil and acid, then season generously. Coat with one tight drizzle of the green mayonnaise, then scatter with the greens. Place on 2 dishes and enjoy immediately.