Last week one of my friends asked if I’d had my first mess of lettuce and onions this year.
While my friend, Julia, and her family call it lettuce and onions, it is known by various other names. I’ve heard folks call the spring delicacy killed lettuce, kilt lettuce, wilted lettuce, killed salad, and even just lettuce. We most often call it kilt or kill lettuce.
Over the weekend The Deer Hunter and I enjoyed our first mess of kilt lettuce and oh my was it good.
Just like with the name, there are variations on how people whip up a bowl of the goodness. Our method is very simple.
To make the best kilt lettuce you need fresh leaf lettuce from the garden, green onions, and hot grease. We prefer using grease rendered from fat back but bacon grease works well too. If you’d rather not use meat grease olive oil may be substituted.
Begin by harvesting, looking, and washing your leaves of lettuce making sure to dry off as much water as possible. I wash mine early in the morning and leave it drying on a towel on the counter.
Just before serving cut up several green onions and mix with torn lettuce in a bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Pour hot grease over lettuce onion mixture. Be prepared for lots of hissing and popping when the grease hits the lettuce. Stir and serve quickly. It doesn’t take much grease, a little bit goes a long way.
Kilt lettuce goes wonderfully with soup beans and cornbread. If you’d like to see me make the traditional Appalachian dish go here.
Last night’s video: Planting our Green Beans & Sharing Appalachian Bean Planting Folklore.
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Ms Tipper,
Same here, one of my favorite memories…kilt lettuce. A little bit of ACV too. Now I want some.
Wilted lettuce is what I called it growing up. Wilted lettuce and cold cucumber and onions – summer time at my Mamaw’s house. It’s home in a bag or bowl. I just came across your page and I LOVE IT. I can’t wait to keep reading :).
I love wilted lettuce, black seeded Simpson being my favorite. I wilt it with about 1/3 cup hot vinegar mixed in with the hot grease. Now I’m hungry!!
Tipper,
Was thinking about lettuce and that brought to mind watercress that we used to eat. Does it grow in your area?
What Is Watercress and What Does It Taste Like? | MyRecipes
Here are a few nutritional highlights of the superfood: One cup of watercress provides more than 100% of the recommended daily intake for vitamin K, which is essential to bone health. Low in calories and high in nutrients, watercress is considered an extremely nutrient-dense food and may aid in weight loss.
Sanford- I’m not sure but would love it if it did 🙂
Grease and lettuce, hot cornbread with butter and onions and a glass of cold milk. That is good eating!
Kathy Patterson
my mother always fried fatback and used the grease off of it. Thats what we still use.
I sure do like Kilt Lettuce and Onions. Best spring treat ever! A cake of cornbread to go with it….makes me hungry just thinking about it!
Tipper,
Thank you for that recipe! Love that stuff
I saw someone mention Rattle snake beans
Can you or anyone direct me to where I can order some? Here in NE Oklahoma they are hard to find
Your Help is much appreciated.
Thanks Tipper!
Terry-glad you enjoyed it! I found some here: https://www.seedsavers.org/rattlesnake-snap-bean
My son and I love “lettuce and onions” as my whole family did. Nothing better with hot cornbread! My husband accidentally tilled my lettuce under–guess we’ll have to resort to the grocery store.
My folks called it scalded or wilted lettuce. I wouldn’t eat it.
We love salads and this sounds like a quick and easy supper for tonight 🙂
I have eaten Kilt lettuce like you made but didn’t make it raising my family, although I enjoyed the taste:)
I am always amazed when I start one of your cooking videos and see you are using exactly the same type of stainless steel 1 or 2 quart pot with metal ring hanging from handle, or stainless steel green bean pot with black handle on each side you cooked those green beans to soft just like we love them too. All those cooking pots are exactly like the ones Mother used and passed on to me along with the old iron skillet:) Even the little parry knife with wooden handle just like Mother used and passed on to me. I have wonderful memories as a young girl sitting on my Grandmother’s porch down south breaking green beans and listening to all the wonderful stories from my family. Thanks for bringing back all those precious memories of good honest hard-working people I loved dearly.
In West Virginia, one of my grandmothers called it “scalded” lettuce and the other called it “wilted” lettuce.
I think that’s Revere Ware. My mother had a couple of pieces of it. They had copper bottoms.
Oops! Wrong comment! Meant for Dee!
This was and is my favorite way to eat leaf lettuce but I like to add a splash of vinegar to cut the fat a little….so yummy with hot corn bread a cold butter milk.
We called it wilted lettuce and even my vegetable hating little sister loved it. Mama would fry a couple slices of bacon until crisp and set the bacon aside. She’d have her washed leaf lettuce in a big bowl and would sprinkle cider vinegar on it rather liberally. She’d pour the hot grease over it, stirring as she did, then add salt, lots of chopped green onion and the crumbled bacon. Larruping good, as daddy would say. We all loved it.
When I told my friend I was going to pick a mess of lettuce and onions, she shook her head and pretended to gag. She had no desire to try it even after I explained it doesn’t taste anything like the lettuce she eats in her salad. I have looked everywhere for more green onion sets and they are nowhere to be found.
My wife’s grandma made the best wilted lettuce I ever had. There is an art to getting it just right, and she could do just that. The next thing out of her garden was English peas. She picked them small, and made them with tiny dumplings in the broth. We miss her but will never forget her.
My mother would also make dumplings in the broth when she cooked fresh English peas.
I’ve enjoyed 2 plates/meals and have always prepared it as you do. One of my most favorite meals.
My Mom really liked kilt lettuce but as best I recall she was the only one. I have some big lettuce this year. And I have green onions. Looks like I need to try it again after, lo, these many years. I have a feeling though I would have to eat it all myself. Strange what ‘sticks’ with us and what doesn’t.
We always had radishes in ours and crumbled bacon. I want some now.
Tipper,
The first “mess” of lettuce we had while growing up in Northeast TN was what we called branch lettuce. It grew wild, in abundance, close to small mountain branches, not tree branches, that were exposed to the sun. Ramps were big enough to harvest at the same time, so they were substituted for onions. We used the term “killed” lettuce.
The branches referenced were actually runoff from mountain springs and were not actual streams, so to speak, but rather much smaller than a creek or stream.
I agree! Trees don’t have branches, they have limbs!
In Indiana I always heard it called wilted lettuce and it was definitely a rite of Spring. I no longer have a garden. But now, I am hungry for some wilted lettuce and need to go on a search to see if I have a friend who can spare a little lettuce and green onions. Thank you Tipper for always sharing your everyday Appalachian life with us.
Some kilt lettuce with some fresh rattlesnake beans and a corn pone would be mighty tasty !
Martha,
Had to look up rattlesnake beans since I am not familiar with that name. There was a Rattlesnake Pole Bean and a Rattlesnake Shelling Bean which I expect are one in the same? I assumed that the Rattlesnake Shelling Beans were just ones that were left on the vine until they were fully grown?
I’ve heard it called Wilted Lettuce, but I have yet to ever eat it. I’ll have to try making it since my lettuce and onions are grown enough to pick. Thank you for sharing!
This is a side dish I keep promising myself to make every year now for many years. But I keep forgetting about it. It sounds very good. Growing up, my grandma made Swiss chard a lot for her and my grandpa. I would just stare at it when she put it on my plate. I had convinced myself that the only vegetable I liked was corn. So I wouldn’t eat any other kind of vegetable. About ten years ago, I started to eat “clean”, and began trying all the various vegetables a little at a time. Guess what? I love all vegetables now, except Lima and butter beans. And maybe a couple more that I can’t think of right this minute. My grandparents also had pomegranates, which I refused to eat. My sister, Lyn, loves them, and ate one every time we were next door at my grandparents. About five years ago I finally tried some pomegranate seeds, and guess what? Yes, I love them! Now if I can just convince myself to eat the crust on bread. I keep telling myself it is part of the rest of the bread, just eat it. But old habits die hard, and the first thing I always do is pull the crust off my sandwich or any other bread slice I am eating. I have been doing this since I can remember. And honestly, I am not a picky eater …. I just have a few quirks when it comes to food.
Donna. : )
The first time I heard you talk about Kilt lettuce I had to try it. Gosh was it good. I do have a ‘salad spinner’ so when I was my greens I use it to dry much of the water off. I will try to leave it on the counter next time and allow it to dry that way. In watching you guys plant your beans yesterday, it reminded me of the first time planting beans and allowing it to run up a chain-link fence while living in a subdivision years ago…I am so glad we now have room to plant and use a cattle panel and plant on both sides. Keep up the good work, I am sure it can be taxing at time, but for sure we enjoy every blog and follow your lead. God Bless you and yours.