Mixed Greens & Herb Salad
Crisp lettuce and peppery greens tossed with a generous fistful of soft herbs, cucumber, tomato and avocado, dressed simply in lemon and olive oil.
Ingredients & method
Method
Amounts inside the steps follow the servings dial, so you never have to hold the arithmetic in your head.
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Wash and dry the greens and herbs
Rinse the 150 g Mixed salad greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula) and a handful of Mixed soft herbs (basil, mint, dill, parsley) in cold water, then spin or pat completely dry.
Wet leaves dilute the dressing and stop it clinging, so the salad tastes watery instead of sharp.
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Prep the vegetables
Dice the 1 Persian cucumber, halve the 200 g Cherry tomatoes, thinly slice the 2 Scallions and dice the 1 Avocado.
Cutting everything to a similar bite-size means each forkful gets a mix of textures instead of all lettuce or all tomato.
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Whisk the dressing
In a small bowl, whisk the 4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil with the 3 tbsp Lemon juice and the minced 1 Garlic clove. Season with Salt to taste and Black pepper to taste.
Whisking the oil and lemon juice together before they touch the leaves keeps the dressing from splitting once it hits the bowl.
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Toss it all together
Add the 150 g Mixed salad greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula), a handful of Mixed soft herbs (basil, mint, dill, parsley), 1 Persian cucumber, 200 g Cherry tomatoes, 2 Scallions and 1 Avocado to a large bowl. Pour over the dressing and toss gently with your hands.
Tossing by hand rather than with spoons bruises the leaves less, so they stay crisp instead of wilting.
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Finish and serve
Scatter over the 60 g Feta cheese and serve immediately.
Feta breaks down quickly once it meets acid, so adding it last keeps the crumbles distinct instead of melting into the dressing.
About
Long before anyone called it a "mixed greens salad," cooks in the hills above the Mediterranean were doing exactly this: gathering whatever tender leaves and wild herbs were young enough to eat raw and tossing them together. The French word for this practice, mesclun, comes from the Provençal mesclar, simply "to mix thoroughly" — peasant foragers around Nice combined bitter chicories, soft lettuces and a scatter of chervil or arugula long before the mixture had a name; the term itself only entered the dictionary in 1976.
A near-identical idea shows up across the region under different names — misticanza in Italy, the herb-heavy salads of the Levant, the leafy tangles eaten with flatbread from Beirut to Athens. What ties them together is the same instinct: pair mild, crisp leaves with a heavier hand of soft herbs than most Western salads use, then dress it simply so the greens still taste like themselves.
The mix crossed into everyday American eating largely thanks to Alice Waters, who tasted mesclun on a trip through Provence in the 1970s, brought lettuce and herb seeds home, and put a version of it on the menu at Chez Panisse — helping turn what had been a foraged, regional habit into the bag of "spring mix" now sold in every supermarket. This version keeps that original spirit: a generous ratio of herbs to lettuce, a squeeze of lemon rather than a heavy dressing, and just enough crunch and creaminess from cucumber, tomato and avocado to make it a meal rather than a garnish.
Cook’s notes
Dry the leaves properly — a salad spinner or a clean kitchen towel works fine — or the dressing will slide off instead of clinging.
Dress the salad only right before serving; once lemon juice hits the leaves they start to wilt within about 15 minutes.
For the herbs, lean generous: this salad works best when the herbs read as a second green, not a garnish. Any soft herb (basil, mint, dill, parsley, coriander) can stand in for what you have on hand.
Health benefits
- Leafy greens and herbs are dense in vitamins A and K and in folate, while contributing very few calories for the volume of food.
- The extra-virgin olive oil in the dressing supplies mostly monounsaturated fat, the type most consistently linked to better heart-health markers when it replaces saturated fat.
- Cucumber and tomato add water and potassium, which helps with hydration and fluid balance.
General information about the ingredients, not advice about you. Nothing here is a medical or dietary recommendation, and no dish treats or prevents any condition. If you are managing a health condition, pregnant, or on a prescribed diet, ask a doctor or a dietitian.
Cons & who should be cautious
- Spinach and other leafy greens are high in oxalates, so anyone prone to calcium-oxalate kidney stones may want to moderate portions or swap in lower-oxalate leaves like lettuce.
- The dressing and feta add sodium and saturated fat respectively — go easy on the added salt if you are salt-sensitive, and skip the feta to keep the dish fully plant-based.
- Leafy greens are a significant dietary source of vitamin K; people on warfarin or other vitamin K-sensitive blood thinners should keep their intake consistent day to day rather than avoiding greens altogether — check with a doctor if unsure.
Not a complete allergen declaration. Ingredient lists describe what we used and cannot account for cross-contamination or what your particular brand contains, so check the packaging of everything you cook with.
Nutrition facts (estimated)
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