Not All Lettuce Is the Same: A Chef's Guide

Some is built for crunch, some for delicate gourmet salads, and some just to bulk out a burger.

Pick the right leaf and a simple salad goes from filler to the best thing on the plate. Here's how our chef sorts the most common lettuces and leafy greens in Australia, as well as a few tips for keeping whatever you pick fresher for longer.

Iceberg — the all rounder.

Crisp, mild and reliable. The workhorse for burgers, chopped salads and fillings. Holds up well and keeps for a good while, which is exactly why it's a supermarket staple.

It's also the leaf that gets unfairly written off as "empty." Iceberg is mostly water, which is no bad thing — it's genuinely hydrating and does carry some vitamins. It's just not where you go for a nutrient hit. That's a job for the darker leaves further down this list.

Cos — crisp and sturdy.

Also called Romaine.

The lunchbox hero. Great for wraps, and crunchy enough to stand up to a heavy dressing without wilting. (Also called romaine — same leaf, different name.)

Butter lettuce (Mignonette) — soft and gourmet.

Delicate leaves, delicate flavour. The one for light, elegant salads and a simple vinaigrette — nothing too heavy, or you'll lose it.

Because it's the most fragile leaf we grow, freshness matters most here. Clean, no-wash handling means no bruising and no trapped moisture — the two things that turn a soft leaf slimy fastest.

Mixed leaf — the everyday base.

A heartier blend of salad leaves, sometimes called the four leaf - it can include red corral, green corral and beet and is built to be the base of almost anything. Mild and versatile enough that it's the default in so many kitchens. Lean on a good dressing and a few bold extras to make it sing.

Rocket — the bold finisher Peppery and punchy.

Sharp, mustardy and built to hold its own against strong flavours — pear and parmesan, steak, pizza fresh out of the oven. A little goes a long way.

Rocket is also one of our strongest nutritional performers: alongside kale, it leads the category on magnesium per kilo, and like every leaf we grow, it's a good source of Vitamin A and Vitamin K1.

Spinach — mild and endlessly useful

Soft, mild and happy either raw in a salad or wilted into a warm dish — pasta, curries, eggs, whatever you're cooking. The most flexible leaf on this list, which is why it ends up in almost every fridge.

How to keep any of these fresher for longer

The biggest thing that kills a bag of leaves fast isn't time — it's moisture and handling. Most bagged salad on shelves is triple-washed before packing, and that residual water plus the bruising from washing is what accelerates wilting and slime.

Ours skips that step. Because it's grown clean enough to never need washing, it goes into the bag dry and undamaged, which is how we get up to twice the fridge life of a regular bunch. Store it cold, keep it sealed, and don't wash it until you're ready to eat it.

Most of this range? We grow it.

Cos, butter, mixed leaf, mesclun and rocket — grown indoors, pesticide-free, and ready to eat straight from the pack. No grit, no rinse, and they last more than twice as long as a regular bunch. Pick your leaf and get going.