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Inspired by a popular New York eatery, the creative method turns typically wasted external salad greens into an velvety green “mayonnaise”. It’s an smart approach to cut down on leftovers while producing something flavorful and adaptable.

Why Repurpose Outer Salad Greens?

These external leaves serve as the plant’s protective packaging, shielding the delicate inner lettuce. While recycling vegetable trimmings is a basic sustainable habit, finding creative applications for these parts is additionally impactful. Converting excess ingredients into rich compost avoids landfill accumulation, where it can release greenhouse gases, which is a powerful climate concern.

This is rather radical when you think over it: food decomposes and transforms into that ideal soil to feed more plants, thus closing this cycle and respecting nature’s cycle of growth.

However, given more than 30% surplus food being made compared to needed, using precious resources wisely is essential. Minimizing waste not only saves money but also promotes the more sustainable lifestyle.

The Herb-Infused “Mayonnaise” Recipe

This versatile recipe works with whatever variety of salad greens and seeds. Through using a entire egg, you eliminate the hassle to repurpose an leftover egg white. The outcome is an creamy, rich dressing that pairs perfectly with greens, grilled vegetables, seared poultry, noodles, or grains.

Yields two

For the Green Emulsion (Yields about 200g)

• 100g butter
• 50g outer salad leaves from 2 little gems, rinsed and thoroughly dried
• 20g shelled roasted pistachios – light-colored nuts such as blanched almonds help keep a bright color, but any seeds will do
• 1 small entire egg

To Make the Salad

• Two romaine or butter lettuces, split longwise
• Extra-virgin olive oil, as needed
• Fresh lime juice or white-wine vinegar, to taste
• One small bunch fresh herbs (like chervil), leaves left intact, stems thinly minced

Steps

First making the emulsion. Heat the fat in a medium pot, add the outer lettuce greens, place a lid and wilt for about 60 seconds, mixing a couple times, until they’ve wilted. Transfer this contents into a jug of an immersion processor, include the nuts and whole egg, then process till smooth. As necessary, incorporate extra seeds to achieve the mayonnaise-like texture. Store in a sealed jar in the fridge for as long as three days.

To prepare the salad, sprinkle each lettuce half with olive oil and acid, then season liberally. Dress with a tight drizzle of the green mayonnaise, then top with the herbs. Place on 2 plates and enjoy right away.