20+ Rhubarb Recipes {Plus How To Cook & Freeze It}

One of the earliest memories I have of my younger brother is sitting outside with him at our grandparents house, each with a small bowl of sugar and a bunch of rhubarb that was just pulled from the garden sitting between us. The memories of munching away on that super sour treat still makes my mouth water over 35 years later!

Bowl Of Fresh, Chopped Rhubarb

I enjoy rhubarb, but my brother LOVES it and he was the guy our Granny counted on to clean out each year’s harvest. Apparently, not everyone has a fella in the family that will eat mounds of the stuff in one sitting and still ask for more. If you’ve run out of ideas for using up this year’s crop, here are my favorite picks of what I’ve found online–something here for everyone!

First, here are instructions for cooking it:
*First published April 1, 2010 and moved to this page for better organization (Source: The WorkBasket, 1954)

When rosy rhubarb hits the spring market, the family menus are in for a lift. There are many rhubarb specialties, combined with other popular fruits such as pineapple or strawberries, but the classic way to serve it the first time in the new year is “pure.” Here’s how you do it…

Don’t peel the deep pink stalks! Just wash them well, trim them and slice into three-quarters to one-inch lengths.
For each pound of rhubarb, add 1/4 cup water and cook, covered, in a heavy pan until barely tender. This takes about 5 minutes.
Add 1/2 to 1 cup sugar–to suit your taste–and cook until sugar is dissolved.
Stir it gently but be careful not to mash it to pieces.

Serving Tip: Cool and serve with gingerbread or chocolate cake!

Instructions for freezing rhubarb have been added to the bottom of this page.

Recipes

*Note: Descriptions below are quotes from the recipe sites

Bread: (scroll down page for recipe) We cut big, moist chunks off one loaf and tried not to bite our fingers amidst the mania induced by this bread. It is delicious. Rhapsodic. Purr-inducing. I’m ashamed to admit this, but we easily ate half the loaf, and probably could have eaten the whole thing if some part of my brain hadn’t snapped back into sanity and stopped us. If you’ve got a friend with a large rhubarb patch, ask her for some, then bake her this. She’ll love you forever. (A Chicken In Every Granny Cart).
Walnut Bread: I was thinking of ways to use up the rhubarb that is growing like crazy in the backyard. After a few rhubarb crisps I thought I would try to make a rhubarb bread. I really liked the end result: a dense but moist bread with that trademark rhubarb tang. And, because it has whole grains and rhubarb, there is enough fibre to totally clean your clock. (Vegan Dad).
Cinnamon Mini Loaves: The mini loaves smelled heavenly and tasted even better. I am quite taken with the tangy flavor of the rhubarb. It’s not as sweet as a strawberry (which is probably why they are always seen together in public). This muffin/bread is great for mornings, snacks, and even a modest dessert. I think you could definitely add another 1/2 cup of rhubarb to the mix and the bread would not suffer. (Use Real Butter).
Muffins: These muffins, let me tell you, are the moistest muffins you’ll make. They’re so moist, that even if you eat them on the following day, they taste like they’re freshly baked. Delicious! (Nami-Nami).
Strawberry – Rhubarb Muffins: The perfect 6am pre-breakfast muffin snack (vintage strawberry tablecloth makes them taste even better). (SouleMama).
Cinnamon-Rhubarb Muffins: These muffins have it all: a tender, moist crumb studded with ruby-red pillows of butter-soft rhubarb, and just the right amount of cinnamony sweetness to bring all the flavours out. You only need 8 oz. of rhubarb, so this is the perfect recipe to use up any leftovers you might have. (The Village Vegan).
Rhubarb Crisp Ice Cream: Picture a rhubarb crisp: sweet-tart soft pink fruit coated with a crunchy brown sugar oat streusel, and topped with a scoop of ice cream. That vision was exactly what I had in mind when I concocted this ice cream flavor, using a few ideas from The Perfect Scoop, of course. (Eggs On Sunday).
Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp w/ Ginger & Cardamom: (Rebecca Picard Photography).
Cobbler: Since I wanted to wade into the rhubarb waters slowly, I stuck with the classic marriage of rhubarb and strawberries and didn’t introduce any funky third parties into the mix. No spices, no nuts, nothing fancypants. So long as you slice the stalks nice and thin, the rhubarb gets all jammy and melty and lends a lovely tartness and body to the berries, creating a nicely balanced dessert. (5 Second Rule).
Pie with Lattice Crust and the 3-2-1 Pie Dough: For me one of the things that makes a rhubarb pie fun to create is the lattice crust. It’s pretty to look at but there’s a functional element to the lattice as well. Rhubarb is a moist vegetable that releases copious amounts of liquid. The open network allows good reduction of the bubbling liquids. A closed lid wouldn’t, and no top crust diminishes the pleasure of the pie. (Michael Ruhlman).
Deep-Dish Pie: My dough can be made with just butter, but swapping in some lard yields an even flakier crust. As for the filling, I’ve experimented with several thickeners, but cornstarch is my favorite for juicy fruit pies. (Food & Wine).
Apple Rhubarb Pandowdy: This pandowdy’s flavor was so well balanced that I was willing to overlook the liquidy filling. The fruit is sweetened with maple syrup instead of sugar, and it’s topped with a crisp, browned pie crust. The sweetener and spices are subtle, so the filling still tastes tartly of rhubarb and apple. A pandowdy gets its name from the “dowdy-ing” of the pastry crust. (Pittsburg Needs Eated).
Creamy Tarts: Puff pastry makes these rhubarb tarts mouthwateringly delicate. Use your favourite fruit of the season. (BBC Good Food).
Crumb Cake: It seems like you either love rhubarb or hate it. Until a year ago, I thought I disliked it. Sure, it does have a strange, celery-like texture, and is very tart, but the flavor is incredible. At least I think so. Please, please try it if you haven’t, and think you don’t like it. (Sugar Plum).
Ripple Cake: When you slice it you get this lovely ripple effect through the centre of the cake and small chunks of white chocolate through the cake. (Cook Almost Anything At Least Once).
Coffee Cake: The texture was moist and light, the rhubarb was an obvious flavor and texture, and the crumb topping was superb (I did leave out the nuts again). (Jenny Bakes).
Rhubarb & White Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes: These cakes are incredibly moist and will stay so for a day, maybe longer, but I’ve not been able to verify that: I’ve made four batches in the last two days and they seem to disappear at lightening speed and in very mysterious ways… and nobody in the family seems to notice anything! (The Passionate Cook).
Recipe for Sorbet: The sorbet was SO creamy. It tasted more like gelato than sorbet, but without any cream! I was hoping for a deeper red color, but oh well, I am partial to pink anyways. The rhubarb flavor was perfect too, not too sweet, just right! I loved the kick from the orange zest too! (Two Peas And Their Pod).
Rhubarb Fool: It is a classic British dessert made of cooked, sweetened fruit that is folded into whipped cream. There is nothing as simple, and yet just a touch decadent. (Zoe Bakes).
Roasted Rhubarb: What really made me giddy was the fact that I’d finally stumbled on a way of cooking rhubarb that didn’t reduce it to the usual muddy puddle of cellulose. Instead, the lengths kept their rosy integrity intact and were as pretty to the eye as they were to my palate. This trick is going into my kitchen arsenal. I don’t know that I’ll ever cook rhubarb any other way again. (The Wednesday Chef).
Rhubarb Confit with Rhubarb Syrup for Improvising: (The Splendid Table).
Soda: Recently my greed at the farmers’ market prompted me to buy more rhubarb than I had time to fashion into tarts or pie. Instead I turned the stalks into syrup, which I then made into cocktails and sodas. (Culinate).
Pickles: Not just a pretty leaf stem, rhubarb is the locavore pastry chef’s ramp: a springy sign of life when even the most devoted Greenmarket shopper is beginning to think that if he ever sees another storage apple, it will be too soon. Alice Waters, who likens the tart-flavored veggie to “the smell of earth in spring,” is a fan, and so is Jean Georges’ Johnny Iuzzini, whose rhubarb-pickle recipe demonstrates that there’s more to do with the plant than make jam or fill a pie. (NY Mag).
Pickles: Do you know that kind of sour that makes your saliva glands ache a little and actually squirt just thinking about biting into something? It’s like, no you don’t want to eat that, but you can’t stop yourself! And there you are 3 seconds later… not wanting to take yet another bite. But you know you will! A little shiver goes down your spine and you can’t decide if it is from pleasure or pain! Well that’s the kind of sour I have for you today. The sour kind of sour, that can only be described as hurts so goooood! (Sippity Sup).
Jam & Jelly: It’s oh-so-easy to make rhubarb jam and jelly. Allow only an hour to make both of these at the same time. And when the jars are lined up so pretty on the counter, how proud you’ll feel! (Kitchen Parade).

How To Freeze

*First published May 28, 2007 and moved to this page for better organization

Instructions:

Choose early spring rhubarb of good color.
Wash and cut stalks in 1 inch pieces. Boil for one minute then cool quickly in ice water. Drain.
For every 4 lbs rhubarb, mix in 1 lb. sugar. Pack into plastic containers and freeze.

Use for pies and sauces.