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Drawing from a popular New York restaurant, this creative method converts often-discarded external salad greens into a velvety green “mayonnaise”. It’s an ingenious approach to reduce leftovers while making a condiment tasty and versatile.

Why Repurpose Outer Lettuce Greens?

These outer leaves serve as the plant’s natural packaging, shielding the tender inside lettuce. While composting vegetable scraps is a fundamental sustainable habit, finding new applications for these parts is additionally impactful. Turning surplus ingredients into rich compost prevents dump accumulation, where it can emit methane, which is a potent environmental issue.

It’s quite innovative when you think over it: produce rots and transforms into that ideal growing medium to nourish more crops, thereby closing this loop and honoring the process of growth.

Yet, given more than 30% extra food being produced compared to needed, using valuable ingredients wisely is essential. Minimizing waste not only conserves money but also promotes the more sustainable lifestyle.

The Green “Mayonnaise” Method

This adaptable recipe functions with whatever variety of salad greens and seeds. By incorporating one entire egg, you avoid any hassle to use up an extra egg white. This result is a creamy, rich dressing that works perfectly with greens, roasted vegetables, grilled chicken, pasta, or rice.

Serves two

For the Herb “Mayonnaise” (Makes about 200g)

• 100 grams butter
• 50 grams outer salad greens from two little gems, rinsed and dried
• 20g peeled roasted nuts – white nuts such as cashews help maintain a bright color, but whatever seeds can work
• 1 medium whole egg

For the Side

• 2 romaine or butter heads, halved lengthways
• Cold-pressed olive oil, as needed
• Fresh lime juice or white-wine vinegar, to taste
• 1 small handful fresh greens (such as chives), leaves picked whole, stalks finely chopped

Steps

First preparing the emulsion. Heat the fat in one small pot, toss in the external salad greens, place a lid and cook for about a minute, mixing a couple times, till they have softened. Transfer the contents into a container of an stick blender, include the nuts and egg, then process until creamy. If needed, incorporate more nuts to get the thick texture. Store in an sealed jar in the refrigerator for as long as 3 days.

To prepare the dish, drizzle each gem portion with oil and lemon juice, then season liberally. Dress with one zigzag pattern of the herb emulsion, then top with the herbs. Place on 2 dishes and serve right away.