Wilted Lettuce

[lindag]

Remembering how much I used to enjoy  this salad I don't know why I haven't made it in years.  It'[s on the menu  now for this week!

[Smithy]

4 hours ago, lindag said:

Remembering how much I used to enjoy  this salad I don't know why I haven't made it in years.  It'[s on the menu  now for this week!

 

You mean the lettuce is wilted with a hot dressing? What else do you put into it? I like wilted spinach salads with bacon, slices of boiled egg and other goodies. If you don't mean this sort of wilted lettuce, then how do you plan to do it?

[liuzhou]

I use wilted lettuce ll the time. It's probably the most common way to use it, round here. 

 

Not so much as a salad, but more a side dish, stir fried wilted with garlic and oyster sauce. Or dropped into soup dishes to wilt in the residual heat. Pea and lettuce soup is my favourite. Ditto with fried rice.

 

 

[KennethT]

I once saw a stir fried lettuce side dish in Singapore at our favorite chicken rice restaurant.  We ordered it out of curiosity, along with a stir fried baby gailan (chinese broccoli) which is common in Singapore - although I've never seen it anywhere else.  The stir fried lettuce was ok, but we much preferred the baby gailan.

[lindag]

15 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

You mean the lettuce is wilted with a hot dressing? What else do you put into it? I like wilted spinach salads with bacon, slices of boiled egg and other goodies. If you don't mean this sort of wilted lettuce, then how do you plan to do it?

I make it the same as you would with the spinach.

[YvetteMT]

On 10/30/2025 at 4:56 PM, Smithy said:

 

You mean the lettuce is wilted with a hot dressing? What else do you put into it? I like wilted spinach salads with bacon, slices of boiled egg and other goodies. If you don't mean this sort of wilted lettuce, then how do you plan to do it?

Oh that sounds good Smithy!

My mom's version was iceberg,  bacon and a hot dressing of white vinegar and sugar with some bacon grease.  I do hers but with romaine, add onion and a grainy mustard in the dressing with little to no sugar. 

[Jacksoup]

 @Smithy’s wilted spinach was hugely popular here in California in the 80’s, if remember my decade correctly

[JAZ]

19 hours ago, YvetteMT said:

. . .

My mom's version was iceberg,  bacon and a hot dressing of white vinegar and sugar with some bacon grease.  I do hers but with romaine, add onion and a grainy mustard in the dressing with little to no sugar. 

 

My mom did that same version, although she used whatever lettuce my dad was growing -- usually red leaf or Boston as I recall. Both my parents were from Montana; I wonder if it's a Montana thing.

[Smithy]

46 minutes ago, JAZ said:

 

My mom did that same version, although she used whatever lettuce my dad was growing -- usually red leaf or Boston as I recall. Both my parents were from Montana; I wonder if it's a Montana thing.

 

Western maybe, but not Montana. My mother used to do that same salad, using iceberg lettuce. i don't know whether she brought that idea with her from Florida, where she'd grown up, or learned it in California, where my father grew up and where we lived.

[liuzhou]

47 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Western maybe, but not Montana.

 

I wouldn't say it's even particularly American. It is common in France. My grandmother served it in the 1950s, probably much earlier before I was around. It is also known in Italy and Germany. Indeed, the ancient Romans used it, too.

 

Probably brought to the USA by German immigrants. 

 

China also developed the taste, probably separately.