Recipes › Lettuce › Griddled Halloumi and Little Gem Salad with Pomegranate and Sumac Dressing
Griddled Halloumi and Little Gem Salad with Pomegranate and Sumac Dressing
Crisp, cool Little Gem leaves are piled high with salty griddled halloumi, jewel-bright pomegranate seeds, and a sharp sumac dressing that ties everything together. This is a salad that earns its place as a main — substantial, bold, and genuinely satisfying. Ready in under 25 minutes, it is exactly what you want to make when the garden is giving you lettuce faster than you can eat it.
Lettuce is in season now. More lettuce recipes, or see what to sow this month where you are.
Ingredients
- 4 Little Gem lettuces, leaves separated and washedor use 2 heads of Cos lettuce, roughly torn
- 500 g halloumi, sliced 1cm thick
- 120 pomegranate seedsor use roughly chopped dried cranberries
- 1 cucumber, halved lengthways, seeds scraped out, sliced into half-moons
- 8 radishes, thinly sliced
- 15 g fresh mint leaves, roughly torn
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
- 2 tsp sumac
- 1 tsp runny honeyor use maple syrup to keep vegetarian
- 1 cloves garlic clove, finely grated
- 1 tsp flaky sea salt
Contains: sulphites.
Method
- Make the dressing by whisking together the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, sumac, honey, grated garlic, and a pinch of flaky salt in a small bowl. Taste and adjust the lemon or salt — it should be quite sharp. Set aside.About 3 min
- Pat the halloumi slices completely dry with kitchen paper. This is important — any moisture will cause them to steam rather than colour. Heat a griddle pan or large frying pan over a high heat until very hot, then brush with the olive oil.About 2 min
- Griddle the halloumi slices in a single layer for 2 minutes per side without moving them, until deep golden with char marks. Work in batches if needed. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.About 8 min
- Arrange the Little Gem leaves across a large serving platter or wide shallow bowl. Scatter over the cucumber slices and radishes, spreading them evenly through the leaves.About 2 min
- Lay the griddled halloumi slices over the salad while still hot. Immediately scatter over the pomegranate seeds and torn mint leaves.About 1 min
- Drizzle the sumac dressing generously over everything. Finish with a final pinch of flaky salt and an extra dusting of sumac if you like. Serve straight away — the warm halloumi wilting the lettuce slightly is part of the charm.About 1 min
Tips
- Get the pan genuinely hot before the halloumi goes in. A lukewarm pan means it sticks and goes rubbery instead of golden.
- Dress the salad at the last possible moment — the Little Gem leaves hold up better than most, but they will start to soften once dressed.
- If your pomegranate seeds taste flat, a tiny pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon directly on them makes a real difference.
Ring the changes
- Add 400g of drained chickpeas (tinned is fine) tossed in olive oil and sumac for extra substance.
- Swap the halloumi for 4 thick slices of sourdough, griddled until charred — makes it vegan if you use maple syrup in the dressing.
Keeping it
This salad does not store well once dressed. Keep any leftover components separate — undressed leaves in a sealed bag in the fridge for up to 2 days, cooked halloumi in an airtight container for up to 2 days and re-griddle briefly to revive.
In the app this recipe finds you
Log what you've picked and GrowMore CookMore matches it to 1,918 more recipes like this one, tells you what's ready before the frost gets it, and keeps the freezer honest. Free to start.
More from the same crop
This is a proper cold soup — vivid green, smooth as silk, and genuinely refreshing on a hot summer day. A full head of round lettuce gives the soup its silky body and a gentle bitterness that stops it tasting like blended peas alone. It takes barely any time to make but needs a couple of hours in the fridge, so it is an ideal make-ahead dish for when you know lunch is going to be busy.
25 min · easy · LettuceIceberg or Cos lettuce is shredded into wide ribbons and tossed into a wok at the very last moment, just long enough for the heat and the glossy oyster-ginger sauce to make the leaves collapse to something silky and intensely savoury without going limp and watery. This is a classic Cantonese technique — stir-fried lettuce appears on every good dim sum menu in Hong Kong for good reason. The crispy pan-fried tofu brings substance and a satisfying contrast of textures. This is genuinely on the table in under thirty minutes.
27 min · easy · LettuceTender outer leaves of butterhead or iceberg lettuce are wrapped around a fragrant filling of spiced lamb mince, long-grain rice, toasted pine nuts and currants, then gently simmered in a lemony tomato broth until the rice is cooked through and the leaves have turned silky and yielding. It is a dish rooted in the Turkish tradition of sarma but using fresh garden lettuce in place of vine leaves — something that works beautifully when you have a glut of large-headed lettuce coming at once. Serve with thick yoghurt and warm flatbread.
1 h 10 min · medium · Lettuce
Allotment keeper in the North East of England, the voice behind the Tony C Smith YouTube channel, and the gardener who built GrowMore CookMore. Club numbers on this page update as members log their plots. Last updated 4 April 2026.