Used only as a wrap, lettuce runs to two or three leaves a meal. Dressed like this, 50 g goes down at once. Nothing is heated, so the folate and vitamin K survive.
2 servings10 min
Wash the lettuce leaf by leaf under running water. The leaves overlap, so soaking alone never reaches the inside.
Shake it completely dry. Any water left and the dressing slides off and the leaves wilt within ten minutes.
Tear it into bite-size pieces by hand. A knife leaves a wide clean cut that browns faster.
In a bowl, mix the soy sauce, vinegar, chilli flakes, sugar and garlic first so the dressing is finished before the leaves go in.
Add the lettuce and lift it from underneath two or three times only. Kneading bruises the leaves.
Add the sesame oil and seeds last and fold once more.
Eat it straight away. After five minutes the salt draws water out and it pools in the bottom of the dish.
The purpose of this dish is to eat more lettuce.
As a wrap at a barbecue table, lettuce comes to two or three leaves, 10–15 g a meal. Dressed like this, the same meal carries 50 g.
What those 50 g bring:
| 100 g | One serving (50 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 15 kcal | 8 kcal |
| Vitamin A | 370 µg RAE | 185 µg |
| Folate | 38 µg | 19 µg |
| Fibre | 1.3 g | 0.65 g |
185 µg of vitamin A is a little over 20% of an adult's requirement. For something attached to 8 kcal, that is a good trade.
Using no heat is the point. Lettuce's folate and vitamin C are heat-sensitive, and no flame touches this dish.
The sesame oil is not only for flavour. Lettuce's vitamin A (as beta-carotene) and vitamin K are fat-soluble, and absorption falls without fat. A teaspoon is enough — more and the leaves go heavy.
Why tear by hand. Cut surfaces brown on contact with air. A knife slices cells open in one clean line and exposes the enzymes all at once; tearing splits along the cell walls and leaves a less even face. The taste difference is small, but it holds its looks longer.
Why mix the dressing first. Poured straight onto leaves, soy sauce salts one spot and leaves the rest bland. Make the liquids uniform, then add the leaves.
A teaspoon of soy sauce instead of salt is about sodium: it carries roughly 300 mg, which across two servings is 150 mg each. To push the flavour, add vinegar rather than soy sauce — sourness covers for missing salt.
Why eat it immediately. Osmosis starts the moment salt touches the leaf. Five minutes brings water out; ten minutes and it has wilted. Dress it after everything else is on the table.
The claim that lettuce makes you sleepy is handled in the lettuce entry. In short, the sleep trials used a cultivar-specific extract capsule and seeds, not the leaf. If a plate of this makes you drowsy, the likelier causes are the size of the meal and what came with it.
Vegetables
Early researchA 2025 randomised trial in Korean adults found total sleep time up by about 35 minutes. But what was given was two capsules a day of an extract from one specific cultivar, not lettuce leaves. The 15 kcal and 370 µg of vitamin A per 100 g are real.
Nuts & seeds
Nutrition dataWhole sesame carries 975 mg of calcium per 100 g, far ahead of milk. Hull it and the figure drops to around 60 mg.
Vegetables
Moderate evidenceThe evidence for garlic points to a modest drop in blood pressure and cholesterol. The trick is to crush it and wait ten minutes before it hits the heat.