What Exactly Is Living Lettuce, And How Do You Keep It Alive?

Living lettuce is any variety of lettuce that is sold with attached roots. These roots allow it to continue receiving the nutrients it needs to stay alive until you are ready to use it. It can stay crisp, fresh, and healthy in your fridge for two or three weeks — much longer than traditional greens. It also retains more vitamins and minerals than other salad greens, and offers a more vibrant taste and pleasant crunch. You can typically find butterhead, sweet crisp, and oak leaf varieties at your local farmer's market or grocery store.

To optimize its shelf life, you must store living lettuce properly. Its roots should remain moist and you should keep the leaves dry. The clever hack that will keep your living lettuce fresh is wrapping a damp paper towel or cotton cloth around its root ball and then placing it back in the bag it came in or in a perforated plastic container. The best spot in your fridge for living lettuce is the crisper drawer, as that protects it from cold air currents and prevents freezing and brown spots.

You can keep living lettuce fresh longer by storing the lettuce upright, making sure the bag has airflow on all sides, and placing it away from ethylene-producing fruits like apples. If you have a humidity control dial on the crisper drawer, set it to 95-100% and keep your fridge temp between 32-36 degrees Fahrenheit. The lettuce needs high humidity to keep the roots from drying out and the leaves from wilting. You can also pop the container on the middle shelf of the fridge, towards the front, as long as it is away from other produce and is standing upright.

To harvest living lettuce, you simply remove the outer leaves as-needed. If you want to try to regrow the lettuce from the roots, leave one to two inches of leaves at the base of the stem. After harvesting, the lettuce can be placed back in the crisper drawer or middle shelf of your fridge until you need it again.

You can use living lettuce the same way you use any salad greens. Harvest three or four leaves, rinse them for 20 seconds under running water, and dry them with a paper towel. This type of fresh, tender lettuce is perfect for an everyday salad with herby lemon vinaigrette or a summer apple harvest salad with pecans and blue cheese. Of course, you can also use the lettuce for sandwiches, wraps, and burgers.

To regrow lettuce from the roots,  place the root base in a shallow dish of water once you've harvested most of the leaves and keep it in a sunny spot. Change the water every day, using just enough to cover the roots and the bottom portion of the stem. After a few days you should see new leaves sprouting. At that point, you can transplant the lettuce into a pot of soil or your garden.