Whether you have your own rhubarb monster or someone gifted you a bundle and you want to use it up, these are the 5 things I regularly make with this sourpuss stem. Also, really only 4 are delicious, the other one is fine.
Rhubarb is one of those foods that proves humans will try to eat literally anything. This is a plant with poisonous leaves, a stringy stalk, and a taste that lands somewhere between lemon peel and battery.
Sidebar - Rhubarb was originally grown for medicine, not cobblers. Its roots were used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years—mainly as a powerful laxative. It was a powerful and violent weapon for intestinal warfare.
And yet, at some point after that, people were like, “Let’s eat this for fun.”
The rhubarb leaf above is off of my big boned rhubarb plant.
Growing TIP - If your old rhubarb plant has lost its vigour you probably just need to split it. Rhubarb, like some other hardy perennials, produces better if you split it every few years in early or late winter. Alright, enough blathering Karen.
So - what to do with all that stuff nobody likes.
- Our first line of defence with rhubarb is going to be sugar.
- Our second, unsweetened whipped cream (which I recommend you heartily top all of these concoctions with.)
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
Pucker Up
RHUBARB CRISP
RHUBARB CAKE
My go-to always. So we're clear on this, a rhubarb crisp has a crispy topping of flour, brown sugar, butter and oats. A cobbler on the other hand has more of a biscuit topping.
Pour heavy cream, or unsweetened whipped cream on top of this please.
A moist, sweet delight that even the non rhubarb lovers will appreciate. It isn't as shockingly sweet as the rhubarb crisp.
Recipe originally from reader Mindy about a decade ago.
STRAWBERRY/RHUBARB PIE
Don't forget to make a strawberry/rhubarb pie during the short window of time when local strawberries are ripe. Or buy one. You could just buy one.
I haven't made this in years because my strawberry patch fizzled out a few years ago and I didn't replant until last year. This year *should* be the year of the strawberry again and therefore also the year of the strawberry/rhubarb pie, vanilla ice cream and cafe curtains blowing in with the breeze.
RHUBARB TART
RHUBARB FRITTERS
It's quick and easy to make, especially if you have frozen pie dough in the freezer. Sprinkling the dough with sugar is what makes this a star.
These require the least effort and offer similar in return.
Are they as good as a rhubarb crisp or pie? Don't be ridiculous.
But they're fast and fine.
Rhubarb
Truly the most eyeball watering ingredient known to humanity and yet - humanity said, “You know what? Let’s put this in the dessert category.”
🌵Pamela of Vegas🌵
Dearest Karen, I’ve returned from Australia and America is not great. Just sayin.
About rhubarb. It’s a disturbing thing. I learned to not-like (hate) it early in life. We had this stuff growing along a walkway fence when I was four. My mean mother (an excellent southern cook) was one of those annoying survivors of the Great Depression (the alternate title of my autobiography) and she, like all the Scarlet O’Hara’s before her, swore she’d never go hungry again! So she knew it was her moral responsibility to cook this shit. It smelled horrible. Texture of celery merged with drywall. Gosh, let’s eat it! Tasted disgusting to me due to the sickening quantity of sugar and grossed me out. The plus was I got to hear about how my mother and Henry Fonda and John Steinbeck drove across Oklahoma in a beat up Chevy and were all grateful to eat nails and rhubarb with melted and crumbled flakes of dirt because dirt had the minerals for strong bones.
🌵 It grew tall by that white picket fence with leaves as big as the mainsail of a Yankee Schooner. The stalks looked like a Jim Henson nightmare and still, my mother was determined to make pie. As she flipped the hem of her hoop skirt up to tiptoe into hell and cut the stalks with a pen knife used by Tennessee Williams to whittle sarcastic barbs, she’d curse the thorny things and promised that it was all going to be worth the suffering once she drug a 25 pound sack of pure cane sugar up our stairs and into the kitchen. Hoop skirts are stupid but southern women in Los Angeles in the early ‘60’s had to compete with Liz Taylor somehow.
I hated and double hated it all. The creepy things piled in a giant tub next to our last of an era, wringer washing machine. I watched her…mom cut the giant stalks into manageable chunks to add to the pot of sugar. As another note: I dislike pecan pie and mincemeat too due to the sugar to edible food ratio.
There was one thing I did like about rhubarb. Its color. In fact, it is the only thing about this terrifying plant that’s a positive. I’ve dyed my hair that color and had a cashmere sweater to match. But eating it? Eww. It’s like getting a pet monkey because AREN’T THEY SO DAMNED CUTE!!!!! Only to come to your senses and realize looks are deceiving. Monkeys are not even edible unless you’re a maniac. Either is rhubarb.
You made all that stuff look really gorgeous. Karen, you could sell monkey pie topped with a rich cherry tomato sauce to Epicureans everywhere. You are gifted and I bet plenty of monkey owners love the beautiful rhubarb whatevers you did there.
I knew a couple of women who had a pet monkey. It/he was their child. He wore cute monkey boy clothes and had a beanbag chair and watched TV. One day he went out a window into a neighbors house and swallowed all the pills in the guy’s medicine cabinet. I wish I was making this up but it’s too weird even for me. The monkey then came home and drank a tumbler of vodka. Normally he was locked up when the ladies were at Home Depot but he had opened his door and let himself out. When the women came home, there was a dead monkey in a beanbag chair holding a bottle of pills with an unknown person’s name on it, a empty bottle of vodka and Gilligan’s Island on the TV. They called an ambulance and the police. It was their child who had seen enough and was already pretty unhappy apparently. The police found the owner of the ravaged medicine cabinet by knocking on doors. The ambulance left without the dead body of little whatshisname (I forget what that monkey’s name was. Sorry.) The medicine cabinet neighbor showed the police and the grieving mothers what the bathroom looked like. The mirror was ripped off its hinges and broken glass was covering the floor along with the bathroom curtains and shower curtain. The toilet had all the products money could buy backing it up and flooding the broken glass floor and pills were scattered. It was Valley of The Dolls on LSD.
There’s no good reason to have a monkey as a pet. Trust me.
I dislike rhubarb.
🌵Pamela of Vegas🌵
That picture is of a pin I wear on my white or black silk jacket lapel next to a stunning poodle brooch and an adorable diamond honeybee.
Karen
I've already added it to the Christmas Gift Guide. Obviously. ` karen!
Janis Brennan
You are a great storyteller. I enjoyed and could identify with each word.
🌵Vegas Subaru Outback Driver🌵
Dear Janis, your name has the unique spelling of the talented Janis Joplin. I bet there may be a story behind this. If not, let’s invent one.
Your father drove a bathtub Porsche and lived in San Francisco after escaping a dreadful life on a farm in the middle of a corn field in Kansas or Nebraska. Your dear father grew rhubarb as a form of pest control to keep snoopy neighbors away from his marijuana crop (the corn was just a front and the police were in on it) - after a stint in the Navy your dad moved to a two bedroom wood frame house on a hillside with a partial view of Alcatraz. That’s where, one foggy overcast cold and almost rainy day, while out walking to his favorite record store, he ran into the prettiest girl with hair the color of a Nebraska wheat field that fell in soft curls. She wore a purple madras loose fitting blouse with a pink skirt that draped to her delicate ankles. On one ankle was a tattoo of a Rose and the name of her ex boyfriend whom we’ve all forgotten about except he was a drummer who sat in with The Grateful Dead occasionally and had stunningly white teeth. Your father was taken with this girl’s beauty and exactly nine months and two days later little Janis was born. You loved riding in that bathtub Porsche and excelled in reading and art. The rest of the story is somewhere in the shack behind one of my brain lobes. I think it’s in an old crate with California Artichokes pictured in faded shades of foggy Salinas. The artichoke capital of the world.
Thank you Ms Janis.
suzanne
Let's not forget rhubarb wine. It takes a few years to go from drinkable to delicious but well worth the wait. It is also good blended with other fruits you might have growing at the time.
Hettie
I'm going to try your recipes, Karen. They all look delicious! I use rhubarb as a landscaping plant. Those enormous leaves! The red stems! Those wacky flower stalks! They're pure frilly fun! I love the giant leaf you're holding. And your black nails and top are very striking with your gorgeous hair! :)
Karen
Thanks Hettie! Today is the day I go out and start harvesting rhubarb, starting with 5 cups for my neighbour to make her annual Mother's Day dessert. ~ karen!
Sandra D
My husband likes it stewed - no sugar! As a kid, and even now, I'll eat the stalk by itself (my sister had to have salt on them). I have a fave I make with it which includes any other fruit you want to throw into it. It's like a crisp with a sugary top but one time I forgot to put sugar in the bottom and it was great, so I only do it that way now. Another fave is a German "Cake" I learned years ago - it's made on a baking sheet, has a shortbread bottom and a meringue top. I once made "steps" with the bushy top of the rhubarb. My rhubarb is just starting for the year - it's so versatile.
Karen
We eat rhubarb sauce. Just stewed it with sugar. Perfect side dish for pork chops.
Karen
I'm Danish and the Danes love stewed rhubarb! ~ karen
Angela
Raspberry Rhubarb dump cake! Not a glamorous name, but oh so easy and delicious. And a great way to use up rhubarb, especially if you’re planning to attend anything in a church basement in the Midwest, lol. You just grease a casserole dish, dump the chopped fruit in, sprinkle a packed of raspberry or strawberry jello, then “dump” a package of yellow cake mix on top of that, then pour 1 cup of water and 1/2 cup of melted butter on top. Bake at 350 until browned.
I love to cook and bake from scratch and I’m pretty sure this is the most “processed” thing I make but it is WORTH it. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
Karen
That's maybe the weirdest recipe I've heard of. It's up there with bacon wraps and white trash salad, but it sounds so ridiculous that I'm going to have to try it ~ karen!
Karen but not that karen
Pretty sure there is a “ dump cake “ somewhere in the Steel Magnolias movie- only they use a tin of fruit cocktail. Pure 80’s nostalgia
Sandra Blackwell
Rhubarb crisp has been a family staple since I was little. It is the first taste of spring. My grandest girl (18 in July) wants it for her birthday instead of cake. Sadly, I moved last summer and my new plants haven't produced enough yet. But I have awesome neighbors who will share. I also found a rhubarb chutney recipe that is pretty good. I use it as chip dip instead of salsa.
christine Hilton
I refer to the Rhubarb cake as Asshat Mindy Cake because the first year l made it so many times l put on five pounds.Still haven't lost that five.Best cake ever!
Tammie L Shurtleff
When I was a kid my grandmother would hand us kids a paper cup of sugar and tell us to go out into the rhubarb patch. I realize now the rhubarb was just used as a spoon, but hey, it kept us out of the grown-ups hair, but then the neighborhood would be full of a bunch of brats hopped up on sugar, running like hooligans and getting into trouble. I'm sure the neighbors wanted to set fire to my grandmothers rhubarb patch. Fun times.
Karen Quinton
I’m not sure if your rhubarb crisp is what we call crumble in the UK. But that is generally the to go to recipe for rhubarb - or rhubarb and apple - here. It’s a rubbed in topping that can go over any fruit. Usually served with custard, but cream would also work. Lots of recipes for it but bbc good food usually reliable. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/rhubarbcrumble_11396
Alternatively, add to gin - like with sloes.
Kristi
Rhubarb chutney. There. Now you have six things.🙂
Janie
Rhubarb sorbet!
3-1/2 C chopped rhubarb
1/2 C water
1-1/2 C sugar
Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 mins, immersion blend. Cool in fridge then run through ice cream maker. I made this today even.
Karen
I HAVE to try that. That sounds perfect. Do you add lemon? I feel like there should be lemon rind. I might add lemon rind. Am I allowed? ~ karen!
Karen
Oh! That's a really good idea. RECIPE RECIPE RECIPE. ~ karen
Kristi
Rhubarb Chutney (NYT recipe)
4cups coarsely diced rhubarb
2cups light brown sugar
½cup lemon juice
½cup cider vinegar
2tart apples, peeled and coarsely diced
1cup raisins
3tablespoons minced fresh ginger
10black peppercorns
Step 1
Place the rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer and add the remaining ingredients.
Step 2
Continue to simmer 20 minutes or so, until the rhubarb is tender but still holds its shape.
Step 3
The chutney will keep for many months in the refrigerator. For pantry storage, transfer the mixture to sterilized jars, seal with sterilized lids and process five minutes in a boiling water bath.
Karen
Excellent. Thank you! Now. What am I going to eat it with. ~ karen!