How Do I Choose the Best Lamb's Lettuce?

Choosing the best lamb's lettuce means looking for the freshest product possible. The location where you purchase lettuce is another important consideration. There are also organic as well as non-organic varieties depending on health concerns and your budget. You also want to reflect on the end use of the lettuce in cooking or serving meals. Gardening fresh lettuce is another option to save money and have a fresh product available at your home.

Fresh lamb's lettuce, also known as mache or corn salad, is light to dark green with slightly curly leaves. The lettuce is not often included in pre-mixed salad kits due to its delicate texture. There should not be any dark spots, slime or discoloration on the leaves. Lamb's lettuce should have a fresh and green smell to it without any sign of a foul aroma.

Purchase lamb's lettuce at a store with a reputable produce section. There should be many varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables that are both visually appealing and fresh-smelling. A good variety of produce means that the store turns over its products quickly due to a demand for the products, which usually ensures that the quality is high and the vegetables are fresh.

Organic lamb's lettuce is available for those who wish to avoid pesticides and other chemicals. This type of lettuce is more expensive than non-organic but is good for those eating a diet free from chemicals. Look for organic lamb's lettuce in the organic area of the produce section and make sure that it says that it is a product that has been certified to be organic.

Lamb's lettuce has many applications both in cooking and serving meals. The fine-textured leaves are sometimes used as a base for a salad, so in this case, leaves of any size are appropriate. When using it to serve other foods as a way of presenting them, choose smaller and more delicate leaves. Any method where the lettuce will be cooked should utilize larger leaves so that they do not disappear during the cooking process.

It is possible to grow your own lamb's lettuce in a garden or a container for fresh lettuce at all times. This enables you to choose the type of seeds to buy as well as how to care for the plants. You can choose to use pesticides or to grow the lettuce organically. This method takes more time, however, but you can pick fresh lettuce on a regular basis.