Rhubarb Crisp with a crunchy topping made with oats, brown sugar and butter. A healthy, refreshing fruit dessert! O.K. it's basically a bowl of sugar and butter with rhubarb throw in for colour. And to be perfectly honest I'm not even sure that it's a fruit. But still ...
You've gotta love an edible plant that comes up year after year no matter how much attention you do or don't give it.
Rhubarb. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
And giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving. And if you look at it with even half a smile ... it jumps right up in your lap and gives some more. It's the Golden Retriever of the vegetable world.
I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing you could do to discourage Rhubarb. It's the first to pop up in the garden, the last to go away and pretty much puts up with every kind of neglect you can throw at it.
The best way to deal with a mass of anything you don't need is to give it away. That way it appears you're the generous one by giving it away, when in truth ... the real gift is getting rid of this massive, relentless, pathologically prolific plant.
If you don't have this problem with your rhubarb growing like crazy, you might need to split it. Rhubarb plants should be split (like I show you in this post) every few years to keep them invigorated.
My favourite thing to do with Rhubarb is make a Rhubarb Crisp. Otherwise known as a Rhubarb Crumble. Otherwise known as the easiest dessert on earth, unless you consider sucking on an ice cube to be dessert. 'Cause that's pretty easy too.
For the body of the crisp you mix up some sugar, cinnamon, rhubarb and water. For the top it's some melted butter, quick rolled oats and brown sugar.
What follows is my Rhubarb Crisp recipe. I make it several times in the spring, then I get sick of it. Once I get "crisp sick", ... I'll start gifting it. 'Cause I'm kind and generous and I have a shitload of rhubarb. Only I probably wouldn't use that actual phrase on the gift card.
Rhubarb Crisp Recipe
Rhubarb Crisp
Ingredients
Rhubarb Crisp Filling
- 4 Cups Rhubarb cut into 1 inch lengths
- 1 cup Sugar
- ¼ cup Flour all purpose
- ½ tsp. Cinnamon
- ½ cup Water
Rhubarb Crisp Topping
- 1 cup Flour all purpose
- ½ cup Quick-cooking Rolled Oats
- 1 cup Brown Sugar packed
- ½ cup Butter melted
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375°F.
- Butter a square 8x8x2 baking dish.
- Combine rhubarb, sugar, ¼ cup flour, and cinnamon in prepared baking dish.
- Pour water over all of it.
For Topping
- Combine 1 cup flour, rolled oats, brown sugar and butter. Mix with fork.
- Sprinkle topping over rhubarb mixturte. Bake 35 minutes.
- Serve warm with cream.
Nutrition
If you plan on giving the gift of Rhubarb Crisp just pack the dry ingredients into mason jars and attach a tag or two with the instructions.
One jar for the filling and one for the crumble topping.
If you decide to make this for yourself as opposed to giving it away, because you're very, very selfish … you might want to consider topping it with some cream. Either regular old coffee cream, like I've used in the photo, or a dollop of whipped cream. Isn't dollop the best word ever?
I find this to be a touch on the sweet side, but as you know I'm more of a potato chip expert. For now.
So … take that as you will. You can add a little less sugar if you like. Or … you can forget the recipe entirely, and just eat a bowl of potato chips.
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Debbie from Illinois
We ate at a little diner for breakfast in the north woods of Wisconsin this past weekend. We had the most amazing Strawberry rhubarb stuffed french-toast. Oh my gee!!!! It was delicious.
Karol
hmmm... Dollop is a good word, but I love "tada!" because it is always followed by an exclamation point and you HAVE to say it with waving hands.
Is that what I got from your blog, you ask? Yup, hate rhubarb, but love a good word.
JebberA
Mmmmmmm. Rhubarb.
... that is all.
Ann
We have a hard time growing it in south central Tennessee. But I have 4 plants, that mostly get shade that haven't quite died yet. The last 3 years I usually get 2 small pickings and we make the most of that.
I love the rhubarb syrup idea and hope I can remember it next spring.
Shauna
Darn it, I was really hoping Cubits was going to have rhubarb seeds.
Evalyn
I love rhubarb, and mine is doing beautifully. If anyone has a Fanny Farmer cookbook, the rhubarb pie reciepe in it is to die for.
Another fav of mine: rhubarb jam. Blue Ball (cough) canning book.
Jacquie Gariano
Love Rhubarb-strawberry pie, My recipe comes from the "Complete Pie Cookbook" by Farm Journal...the books falls open to that recipe page. I do have Fanny Farmer and will try your idea, thanks.
Susan
I LOVE rhubarb too - so much so that we now grow it commercially and sell it to local restaurants, 2 grocery stores and a Pie shop! It makes me so happy to see those huge leaves and to be able to make some actual money from something!
Try your pie mixture next time using raspberries instead of strawberries...divine!! xoxox
Nancy
I love rhubarb but haven't had any for many years..mostly because it takes so much sugar to sweeten it..Now I am wondering if sweetener would work..
Jude
I have used monk fruit in baking as in cookies and crisps and you wouldn’t notice the difference. I get it from the Health Store. You use same measurement as for sugar. More expensive but healthier.
Jane C.
One person asked about other foods to combine with rhubarb. Two of my favourites are fresh oranges (pulp, juice and rind) and pineapple (canned tidbits work best). I also do a chicken recipe that combines rhubarb, cinnamon, onions and brown sugar to make a sauce to put over the chicken while it cooks.
Karen
Jane C - Thank you. That was my next quest. To match up Rhubarb with chicken! Yours ingredients sound good!~ karen
Lance ==)-------------
A rhubarb sauce for chicken! Please share the details.
Jacquie Gariano
OMG, that sounds so good. Karen, you must do this recipe for us,
Shauna
Yummy! This reminds me of my Nana's rhubarb pie made with the rhubarb from the garden. Popop was a pie lover - only ate pie on his birthday, so whatever was in season, my Nana would make pie. Rhubarb was one of my favorites - tart, yet sweet. And, despite what the fella's Dad says, rhubarb, most definitely is a real pie. Any fruit in season made into a pie out of your own garden was considered a real pie in Nana & Popop's house;)
Now, I want to plant rhubarb; sounds perfect for my brown thumb.
Larraine Murphy
Your description of rhubarb reminded me of Al Capp's shmoos, but I know most of your readers will be too young to know about this marvelous gentle critter that "loved humans, laid eggs and Grade A milk in an instant, and would gladly die and change itself into a sizzling steak if its owner merely looked hungry... its skin was fine leather, its eyes made perfect buttons and even its whiskers made excellent toothpicks. Shmoos multiplied much faster than rabbits, so owning a pair of shmoos meant that any family was self-sufficient." They were completely charming!
Linda
I remember those! Wonderful creatures!!
Jacquie Gariano
I,too remember that, I really wanted one.
jojo
Rhubarb & horseradish -- these were the 2 loyal & dependable "vegetables" in our garden growing up. Impossible to kill either one... and impossible to use either entire crop!
Clare
Mmm rhubarb crumble *drools*
Nearly as good as my Rhubarb and Ginger cake ...
Julia at Home on 129 Acres
I'm with you on the potato chips. Salty always wins over sweet for me. Love the way you package the filling and the topping along with the rhubarb. In my family, we're more apt to hand someone a bunch of rhubarb and say, "Here. You figure out what to do with it."
Renate
I have a so easy the kids can do it rhubarb cobbler recipe...add then they eat it too!
grease 9x13 pan, add 4Cups rhubarb cut into 1" chunks, top with 1/3 cup sugar, top with 1 pkg raspberry or cherry jello powder. Sprinkle 1box dry cake mix (yellow or white)over top, pour in 1 Cup water, drizzle with 1/3cup melted butter. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.
Linda
I wish rhubarb would grow in So Georgia...we have to hound the produce guy at Food Lion to find out when it's coming in and get him to save some for us. Mama usually makes several pies (just rhubarb...no strawberries!) and freezes them! I grew up in Indiana, where it DOES grow and we used to go out & break a stalk off, sprinkle it with salt & eat it raw...ummmm! Parents always saying it would give us a belly-ache...but we ate it anyway.
Karen
Sprinkle it with salt? Really? I remember licking the end and pushing it into a bowl of sugar. ~ karen
Linda
Try it! If you like salty & tart...very tart, it's good!
martina
Actually, that may be why you find the crisp recipe too sweet, you don't have any salt in it! Just a 1/4-1/2 tsp in both the filling and the topping should round out the flavor a lot. Just two cents from a pastry chef.
Karen
Good catch. Salt always helps. (I always sprinkle a bit on top of cookies if I'm baking them) ~ karen!
Susan Sutherland
Just cooked my first batch of stewed rhubarb. I add a shot of rum after it's cooked. The rum gives a wonderful flavour to the stewed rhubarb.
Chris
You are so right about rhubarb! But I am glad it is hard to get rid of because I was removing sumac suckers this spring and accidently cut into the rhubarb bulb. I forgot where I transplanted it. The darn thing came back to life! I have made crisp with it but my guy prefers my rhubarb pie but he is English so anything sweet is ok.
Which brings me to a suggestion you could send out to all your readers. It is similar to the post with mailboxes around the world but this time with potato chips. I was dumbfounded when I was in England for the first time and wanted a bag of chips and all they had were tiny bags like the ones we give at Halloween. They were jaw breakers and in every known flavour to man!
Karen
Good idea! ~ karen
Gayla T
I just had my first batch of it last week. I truely love it as sauce, pie filling or crisp. It does take a lot of sugar to make it edible but I eat it such a short time of year.....rationalization going on here. LOL Would you like a start of pseudo rhubarb for a lovely flower bed plant. If the answer is yes I'll know you've never seen it before. Makes an even larger plant than the real rhubarb but has green stems instead of red and the leaves are not shiny. It sends underground runners out to start new plants and it's impossible to get rid of. When I moved in here last April you could not set your foot off the side walk w/o stepping on a plant and the older ones get to be 3 ft high and across. I started by chopping off the tops and digging the roots. It was slow going and by the time I'd get a couple of yards away a new plant would be popping up behind me. After talking to every gardener I know and the county extension agent no one knew how to get rid of it other than by spraying with round up. I spent the 60's being an earth mother hippie so spraying was so hard for me but I finally did it as it would be a one time only deal and surely the planer would forgive me that one time. More rationalizing! So I did and now this year, what do you suppose is coming up every where? Yep. No more huge ones the size of my body but nice healthy youngsters. So, I'll take all the real stuff you want to send my way but don't ever say yes to the fake stuff.
JOAN
Ooh. Sounds brutal. I've never heard of Pseudo Rhubarb but I will watch for it now.
LeeAnne Bloye
Talk about simple! I may actually try this one. Hubby really only likes apple pie (any apple pie, a true pie or not)but I'd bet he'd like this. Since there is tons of rhubarb right beside the barn's manure pile (don't tell hubby that!) talk about easy.
Can you use the pre-packaged Quaker breakfast oatmeal like the Maple and Brown Sugar type? I've got lots of that kicking around the kitchen. We aren't really breakfast people either. :-/
Bedalia
I've used that pre-packaged stuff in a pinch - just mixed with butter to form a crumble topping. Someone gave us a box of those single-serving packets; nobody wanted to eat it for breakfast (we usually cook oatmeal from scratch), so it was a good way to use them up.
LeeAnne Bloye
Thanks Bedalia! I would not want to wreck yet another project. If I were on a pro sports team now, they'd be justified in firing me as a big loser. Not one of my projects has turned out this week! Lets hope my salmon dinner turns out tonight!