In the salad days of summer, a bag of mixed leaves is the ultimate convenience. Just pour into a bowl, dress and serve. . .Aldi's Willowbrook Foods Italian-style mixed lettuce /1.29/ 170g Over two-thirds of this salad is bitter escarole, which makes the salad extra strong.

There's lots of frisee too, which tastes similarly overpowering.

Radicchio and lollo rosso add colour to this overbearing mix of chicories.

**

M&S sweet four leaf salad /2.29/ 130g A colourful salad that looks attractive and tastes sweet and crunchy.

There's a good mix of flavours and textures with the nutty batavia and sweet red chard especially interesting.

*****

Superquinn al fresco salad /2.69/ 170g Mostly cos and radicchio with lollo rosso and frisee, this salad looks good but isn't terribly exciting to taste. Upon closer inspection some of the leaves were in poor condition, despite being well within expiry date.

***

Tesco baby leaf salad /2.19/ 80g An even mix of baby lollo rosso, lollo blondo, spinach and rocket with a little more radicchio made for a wellbalanced bag of flavours. Tasters loved the mix of leaves but marks are deducted for the mushy, turning leaves lurking in the bag.