11 Rhubarb Recipes to Make This Spring (2024)

FAQs

What can I do with all my rhubarb? ›

Rhubarb is a truly special ingredient. With its vivid pink colour and distinctively tangy taste, it can be stewed, poached, roasted and puréed in a range of dishes as well as drinks. Use it in a comforting crumble, a classic syllabub, a fruity chutney or a zingy kebab sauce – the possibilities are endless.

Discard leaves and woody ends. Wash rhubarb with cool tap water, but do not soak.

Rhubarb is good to eat in spring or early summer months, so before late July, to be exact. However, during the late summer months, rhubarb stalks tend to become more fibrous and start to lose their characteristic natural flavor. So, it's better not to eat rhubarb in the late summer.

Frozen rhubarb works best in cooked dishes and baked goods. It should not be used in raw preparations (which is rare for rhubarb anyway), since it may get soggy while defrosting.

The best time to harvest rhubarb is during the months of May, June and early July. After this, it's best to let the plant be, so it can regrow and recharge to survive the winter. You can cut the flower stalk away before it blooms to help extend the harvesting season.

Sennoside A and other dianthrone derivatives are reported to be the active ingredients causing rhubarb's laxative effect (6). They are metabolized by β-glucosidase of enterobacterial origin and are converted into rhein anthrone, which produces the purgative activity.

Slugs eat rhubarb leaves but the mesh would obviously not stop them, so it is something bigger. Possums will also eat the leaves and seem to survive the Oxalic Acid they contain. Birds such as Pukekos will also eat the leaves.

Sweeten It: Rhubarb's natural tartness can be balanced with sugar or other sweeteners. You can make rhubarb compote, pie, or jam by simmering chopped rhubarb with sugar until it becomes tender and sweet. Adjust the amount of sugar to your taste.

Solution: Soak the rhubarb in water to reduce the acid, simmer in orange juice and sugar (and don't stir too much) to retain texture and color, and layer with lightly whipped, sweetened cream for ideal flavor and texture and an attractive, unusual presentation.

What happens if you don't peel rhubarb? ›

So, in conclusion: You don't have to peel rhubarb before eating it. Of course, you can if you want to. But doing it means that some of the lovely red flavor is going to disappear. I usually just prepare rhubarb by rinsing it and then cutting it into thin slices!

At maturity, a rhubarb plant gets to be about 3 feet in diameter, so plant them 3 to 4 feet apart in a 3- or 4-foot-wide bed. Four to six plants will provide plenty of stalks for most families.

One pound of rhubarb makes about 4 cups, or 1 quart, of cut-up rhubarb. Four stalks of rhubarb equals approximately 2 cups of diced rhubarb.

To pick rhubarb, hold the stalk firmly, pull and twist. Do not use a knife to cut the stalks from the plant. The knife can carry diseases from plant to plant, and the remaining stalk can be a point of entry for other pests.

If you have a go-to recipe you'd like to make later, slice the rhubarb according to the directions. If not, slice it about 1-inch-thick for easy storage and flexibility in what you're cooking later. We don't recommend freezing full stalks, as they won't hold their shape well when they thaw.

Yes, absolutely! Once washed, cut the lengths into rough 2.5cm pieces. Space out on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and freeze until frozen (around 2hr). Then decant into a freezer bag or freezer-proof container and freeze for up to 3 months.

You can freeze rhubarb raw, blanched or fully cooked. Regardless of which stage you choose to freeze at, the rhubarb will break down more as it defrosts, so it's best used in dishes where you don't need neat sticks of it.

Spread a single layer of cut rhubarb on trays, freeze until firm (1 to 2 hours), then put in air tight bags or containers. Rhubarb may also be frozen with sugar or syrup. For a sugar pack, mix 1 part sugar and 4 parts rhubarb and allow to stand until sugar is dissolved before packing into freezer containers.