Mixed leaf salad can be a mixed bag, but a recent taste test has identified the best supermarket offerings filled with crunchy green goodness and the ones that are woefully wilted. While supermarket salad bags can rarely compete with the wonderful diversity of leaves found on small farms—often containing only two to four types of leaf compared to eight to twelve varieties in farm bags—some brands are now including more exotic leaves.
How the Salad Bags Were Rated
The test awarded points for leaf diversity, flavour, freshness, and value for money. It highlighted that the same leaf variety can taste dramatically different across packets, from nutrient-dense and alive to bland and flavourless. However, compared with other fresh supermarket products like strawberries and tomatoes, few brands display much transparency or provenance. Most list only a country of origin, with several offering nothing more than “red and green lettuce” on the ingredients list.
Best Overall: G's Organic Mixed Leaves
G's organic mixed leaves, priced at £2.90 for 200g at Ocado (£1.45/100g), earned a four-star rating. The bag contains at least three unwashed leaves with very sweet baby spinach, and baby red and green batavia. The packet notes that contents may vary seasonally, which is rare for supermarket produce. Grown in the UK and EU, it is the only organic (Soil Association-certified) salad mix in the test.
Best Bargain: Aldi Nature's Pick Rocket & Baby Leaf Salad
Aldi's Nature's Pick rocket & baby leaf salad, priced at 89p for 90g (99p/100g, in store only), also received four stars. It is a varied, four-leaf bag of mizuna, baby spinach, lollo rosso, and rocket. The leaves are sweet and flavourful with a peppery, citrus, and mustard twang from the rocket and mizuna, offering really good value.
Other Notable Salad Bags
Morrisons the Best butterhead, pea shoots, chard & sorrel (£1.60 for 80g, £2/100g) earned four stars for its attractive, aromatic, and delicious combination of curly pea shoots, colourful red butterhead, zesty red sorrel, and chard, with origin listed as Yorkshire.
M&S Collection citrus sorrel baby leaves (£2.30 for 80g at Ocado, £2.88/100g) also scored four stars. It features a distinctively different mix with wonderfully sour green sorrel and pretty, bitter, red-veined sorrel, combined with frilly and round-headed leaves. Vertically farmed in Italy, the reviewer noted, “I ate the whole bag like a packet of crisps.”
Waitrose Essential mixed salad (£1.15 for 100g, £1.15/100g) received three stars as an entry-level, two-leaf mix of classic frilly green and red leaves with a classic, bitter edge.
Fresh & Naked baby leaves (£1.20 for 90g at Tesco, £1.33/100g) earned three stars for its unwashed four-leaf mix full of nourishing flavour, including mustardy wild rocket, creamy baby spinach, citrussy baby red chard, and red oak-leaf lettuce. However, it has mixed reviews online, so freshness should be checked before buying.
Sainsbury’s Italian-style salad (£1.35 for 100g, £1.35/100g) got three stars for its diverse, four-leaf mix featuring sweet and mild red cos, bitter green chicory-like leaf, peppery rocket, and succulent spinach, with a balanced but simple flavour profile.
Unbeleafable mixed baby leaves (£1.50 for 80g at Tesco or Ocado, £1.88/100g) scored three stars for its faintly bitter and sweet mix of crunchy-stemmed leaves including frisée and oak-leaf-style lettuce. Some oxidisation and damage were noted, but quality was OK overall. It is vertically farmed in Kent without pesticides by GrowUp Farms, which is B Corp-certified.
Tesco mixed leaf salad (£1.20 for 120g, £1/100g) earned two stars for its sweet, well-textured, simple two-leaf mix of red and green frilly lettuce with crisp stalks and a delicious, mildly bitter, savoury edge.
Asda beetroot, baby spinach & baby kale salad (£1.08 for 120g, 90p/100g) received one star. It is a two-leaf mix with beetroot matchsticks; the beetroot is sweet, the kale mild and bitter, and the spinach has a luscious texture, but there is a slight mustiness likely due to the cut beetroot, so the use-by date should be checked before buying.
Conclusion
For the best overall quality, G's organic mixed leaves stands out. For budget-conscious shoppers, Aldi's rocket & baby leaf salad offers excellent value. Those seeking a splurge should try M&S citrus sorrel baby leaves. The test underscores the importance of checking freshness and leaf diversity when selecting supermarket salad bags.
