Iceberg lettuce
Lactuca sativa var. capitata · Leafy green
Top 10 pairings
Iceberg is the crisphead lettuce — a dense, almost cabbage-like ball of pale, glassy leaves wrapped so tightly the head feels solid and heavy in the hand. Bred above all for crunch and keeping quality rather than flavour, it is the blandest and wateriest of the salad lettuces, valued precisely for that cool, neutral snap: the leaf of the wedge salad, the crisp shred in a taco, and the cold layer that keeps its crackle inside a burger or a sandwich long after a softer leaf would have wilted.
Picking a good onedrag
Crisp and squeakyLimp and slimy
SofteningStill fine rawDressed salads, sandwiches, tacos
Cut coreRim tanned, sap dried
Rib snapBends a little, then snaps
Leaf colourGreen, outer leaves dulling
SmellGrassy and neutral
These cues are Lettuce's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
95%
Edible part
539 g · core out
567 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
A domestic fridge holds it about 5× longer than the counter.
95–100% — as damp as you can get it
Humidity
Wrapped, never sealed
Airflow