For Quicker Salad Prep, Let Your Anger Out On Your Lettuce
Life in the kitchen can involve more dropping, clanging, and hitting your food than you've ever thought possible, but all that noise can make your food even better. The latest "loud" kitchen hack is courtesy of TikTok, and it'll help you make salad far more easily.
If you typically cut your romaine lettuce away from the heart or pull it off piece by piece, there's a better way to separate the leaves that'll take less time. A 2020 viral TikTok lettuce hack mesmerized the internet, and it'll have you taking your feelings out on your leafy greens. The nine-second video, which features registered dietitian @nutritionbabe holding up a head of romaine lettuce and smashing it on a countertop, has amassed 2.8 million views as of this writing, largely thanks to what happens next: The individual pieces of lettuce break apart from the heart but otherwise remain intact, essentially "cutting" them without a knife. With this hack, you'll have perfect leaves of lettuce for your salad in just a few seconds.
Why it's so easy to break romaine by smashing it
Lettuce comes in all shapes and sizes, so this hack may not necessarily be one-size-fits-all. Romaine's shape contributes to how easy it is to break it up by smashing it on a hard surface. It's all thanks to a combination of plant anatomy and physics that this hack works so well on this specific type of lettuce.
Romaine lettuce is characterized by long leaves that form an oval shape at the top of the head. The leaves are loosely attached via the heart, unlike other lettuces that are more tightly bunched together. The shape of the lettuce and the way it hangs off the head rather than clinging to surrounding leaves makes it exceptionally easy to break. Applying force with a quick smash on a countertop or cutting board is enough to loosen romaine leaves from the heart. Therefore, the TikTok video's lettuce-smashing hack may work more effectively on romaine and similar types of lettuce, like Little Gem, than other types of lettuce. If you're up for a romaine salad, though, it'll immensely simplify your prepping process.
How to easily break other types of lettuce
Romaine's structure might make it fairly easy to break, but you can apply the concept to differently shaped lettuce types, too. The viral TikTok hack may also help remove iceberg lettuce hearts, even if it won't beautifully break the leaves off like it does with romaine. Simply bang the bottom of your iceberg lettuce head on the table, and you'll be able to easily pull the heart out.
If you're not in the mood to smash your iceberg lettuce, you can still easily remove its center. Just hold the head of lettuce in one hand, firmly press your other hand on the bottom of the core, and remove the core when it loosens so that you can more easily free the lettuce leaves. Prepping your iceberg salad with this method might take a couple of minutes longer than using the "smashing" hack would, but it'll still help you avoid the monotony of tearing lettuce leaves away from the heart. Other types of lettuce may not necessarily have the correct structure for a little extra force to break them apart, so you may need to separate them by hand. Still, using this viral "smash hit" hack on your romaine or iceberg lettuce whenever you can will leave you chowing down on your salad in no time.