German Lamb’s Lettuce Salad (Feldsalat Rezept) –  This delicious salad is made up of a mild nutty flavoured lamb’s lettuce and a simple honey mustard dressing. Toppings are most welcome in this salad. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Lamb’s lettuce (Valerianella locusta) has many names. It is also famously known as corn salad, Rapunzel lettuce or Mache. In German, it is called Feldsalat, which literally means field salad. 

In Germany, lamb’s lettuce is widely available between October and March. Due to its simplicity and mild flavour, this salad goes well with many meat courses such as Venison and Lengua (recipe coming soon). You can also serve this salad with some pasta, such as spaghetti Bolognese. 

My family eats lamb’s lettuce salad with honey mustard dressing. This is how my mother-in-law taught me. Please note that each family in Germany has their own recipe and may have different salad dressings for lamb’s lettuce salad. This is not the only standard recipe.

The balsamic honey mustard salad dressing compensates the mild nutty flavour of lamb’s lettuce. To spice things up, add diced bacons or croutons for some contrasting colours and flavours. This salad is an easy and quick salad yet full of flavours. Enjoy it while it lasts! 

Tips on making German Lamb’s Lettuce Salad

tLamb’s Lettuce: The highlight of this salad belongs to lamb’s lettuce. Not only does this vegetable taste refreshing. This beautiful dark green salad is also packed with many health benefits such as iron, beta-carotene and vitamin C (to name a few). It is no wonder why Rapunzel’s mother from the Grimm’s fairy tale refused to eat anything else. Who knows if Rapunzel’s beauty comes from this vegetable as well?

It is important to wash your greens a few times thoroughly in cold water, while you are making this salad because lamb’s lettuce grows on the ground and there is mud trapped in the greens during harvesting. It is usually washed, when you buy it. However, there might be still mud trap between the leaves.

Oil: I personally use either plain vegetable oil or olive oil. They can be used interchangeably in this case. Lamb’s lettuce itself has a very mild flavour, and olive oil does enhance the taste of the salad dressing of this salad. 

Balsamic vinegar: In this recipe, I will only stick to balsamic vinegar because this honey mustard salad dressing tastes best with this vinegar. This salad dressing is kept simple and require very little ingredients. As such, balsamic vinegar does not only add sourness to this dressing. It also enhances the dressing with its typical unique balsamic taste, which is not found in other vinegars. Feel free to try out this lamb’s lettuce salad with other salad dressings and share your recipe with me in the comment section below! I would love to know!

Honey/ Mustard: Since we want to achieve a honey mustard dressing for this lamb’s lettuce salad, we would need these ingredients. There are many types of honey available, for example forest honey, acacia honey and fir honey. You can use any types of honey of your choice. If you do not have honey at home, you can use sugar (e.g. Refined sugar or brown sugar) as an alternative. 

Personally, I have tried using different types of honey. For this recipe, my favourite honey is red fir honey (rot Tannenhonig) because it adds a stronger flavour to this mild lamb’s lettuce salad, while honey like acacia honey adds only sweetness to the dressing. Do not add too much mustard unless you want a strong mustard flavour in your salad. We want to achieve a sweet and sour salad dressing and not a spicy mustard salad. 

Seasoning: To keep this lamb’s lettuce salad simple. We will end the dressing with some salt and pepper. No herb is required since we have enough flavouring from other ingredients. 

Bacon/ Croutons: This step is optional. Free feel to add some toppings to your salad. It adds colours to your field salad greens and also a tinge of saltiness to your sweet and sourness. I usually add bacon dices to our salad. For a vegetarian version, you can serve this lamb’s lettuce salad with some croutons. 

How to make German Lamb’s Lettuce Salad

This step is optional. If you are a vegetarian, you can completely skip this step. In a frying pan, pour some vegetable oil. Turn heat on high and wait for a few minutes. Drop a few bacon dices and if they start cooking, then the oil is hot enough. Cook bacon cubes until crispy. Thereafter, transfer crispy bacon into a small bowl.

Add oil, vinegar, yellow mustard, honey, salt and pepper into a salad bowl. Mix the ingredients for salad dressing thoroughly. After which, add lamb’s lettuce into the bowl with dressing and mix.

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How to serve with German Lamb’s Lettuce Salad

You definitely want to serve this lamb’s lettuce fresh, with or without bacon/ croutons! Serve this salad shortly before your meal time. Simply wash the Rapunzel lettuce and prepare the dressing separately. Before you serve the salad, either you put the salad on top of the dressing and mix or drizzle the salad sauce over the greens and mix. 

Toppings can also be served separately. For example, two types of toppings in two separate bowls. The advantage of this method of serving is each guest can choose what he or she wants. If he/ she does not like toppings, he/she can skip on that.

How to store German Lamb’s Lettuce Salad

Unless you do not mind having a mushy salad the next day, you should always finish your salad once you serve it. This lamb’s’ lettuce salad cannot be frozen. If you intend to store it overnight, then store the salad dressing and the Rapunzel lettuce separately, or else it will turn mushy after about one hour.

Have you tried this recipe? If yes, I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as my family does. Show me and tag me #chenguins on social media, so that I can see your recreation as well.

Have you tried lamb’s lettuce salad before? Tell me in the comment section below!

Until next time & guten Appetit!

Greetings from the Black Forest,
Pia

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