Healthy Lettuce Side Dish Recipes

Vary this quick-to-assemble vegetarian appetizer recipe with the season. Try sliced nectarines in place of the strawberries in the summer and halved grapes in the fall. Chopped pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts are all delicious in place of the walnuts as well.

Tender-crisp Boston lettuce makes the perfect low-calorie stand-in for traditional wraps in this healthy, gluten-free recipe. If you can't find Boston lettuce, other types of greens, such as kale, cabbage or iceberg lettuce, will work too.

Ubod, or hearts of palm, are the edible pith of the coconut tree. Yana Gilbuena, who's toured the world sharing her culture's cooking, considers this ingredient to be a great example of how Filipino cuisine honors a plant by using as many parts as possible. Read more about Gilbuena and this recipe.

The cheese's richness complements the juicy tang of citrus and tarragon in this salad.

These wraps should be served with lots of condiments: kimchee, for sure, but also nonfat yogurt and shredded carrots dressed with rice vinegar. Serve the various components of the dish separately and let your family or guests build their own wraps to taste.

Next time you're preparing meat or fish on the grill, try this grilled salad recipe. Romaine lettuce is a perfect choice for grilling and it's ready in just a few minutes. Slightly charred and wilted, the taste is enhanced with a simple lemon dressing and a sprinkling of feta cheese.

Here we toss rice noodles with crunchy vegetables, fresh herbs, tofu and a light, sweet, tart and salty Vietnamese dressing flavored with fish sauce and wrap the mixture in lettuce leaves. For a vegetarian version, use reduced-sodium soy sauce or tamari in place of the fish sauce. Pass the mixture, lettuce leaves and sauce separately so everyone can make their own wraps.

Toasting the pita adds crunch to this bright-tasting salad, and a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of ground sumac--the berry of a bush that grows wild all over Lebanon--add depth. Letting the salad sit for a bit before eating allows the pita to soak up the lemony dressing.

This fun kid-friendly snack is easy to make with leftover chicken, and the protein gives it plenty of staying power.

Preserved lemon dressing coats mixed greens for a salty-sour salad that all will love.

Quick-pickling the shallot tames its sharpness while preserving its crunch. Instead of pouring the pickling liquid down the drain, we use it to make a flavorful vinaigrette for this spring salad.

Serve this quick stir-fry family-style: set out a bowl of stir-fried pork and the lettuce leaves and let people make their own wraps.

Crunchy vegetables and tangy blue cheese combine in this simple, delicious salad.

This garlicky dressing is terrific simply tossed with romaine lettuce, but any sturdy lettuce you have on hand will do--particularly radicchio or escarole.

Perk up your dinner salad by tossing greens with snow peas, carrots and a tangy dressing.

This combo may seem wild, but trust us--it works. Indian-American chef and cookbook author Raghavan Iyer developed it to have everything he thinks a perfect recipe should: a balance of heat, sweetness, a little pucker and a hit of salt combined with a tango of textures.

Black-eyed peas' earthy, nutty sweetness gets oomph from tangy hot sauce. In this recipe, they're mixed with plenty of crunchy vegetables for a satisfying vegetarian salad.

This simple spring salad recipe combines red leaf lettuce and frisee with fresh peas and crispy fried shallots tossed with a light tarragon-infused vinaigrette dressing. The fried shallots give this salad an out-of-this-world flavor. And compared with store-bought fried onions, they have half the calories and a fraction of the saturated fat and sodium.

A lovely exaggeration of the French technique of cooking peas with a little lettuce, this light springtime dish goes well with mildly seasoned seafood or chicken.

In this hearty salad, we toss Brussels sprouts, potatoes, chickpeas and tender greens together in a citrusy vinaigrette. Topped with makes for a hearty and delicious salad.

Fresh spring greens are set off by a dressing that takes its cue from the classic bouillabaisse flavoring, a nutty, creamy, garlicky mélange that's stirred into the soup just before it's served.

Slivered red onions, canned chickpeas and capers combine in a delightful Mediterranean-inspired salad. Make it a meal: Delightful served alongside grilled chicken thighs or shrimp kebobs.

Quick-chilling the asparagus and carrots in ice water is an important step in this recipe. It stops the cooking process of the vegetables so they don't overcook and go limp.

Light mayonnaise makes a velvety base for this zesty dressing, which can easily be doubled if you want enough for another meal later in the week.