11 Rhubarb Recipes to Make This Spring (2024)

FAQs

What can I do with too much rhubarb? ›

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Is it OK to use limp rhubarb? ›

Damaged rhubarb stalks (blackened foliage and limp stalks) should be pulled and discarded. New stalks that emerge after the freeze are safe to harvest.

To keep it sugar free you could use a little stevia, for a low fructose option you could use either rice syrup or coconut nectar, or if you're a honey fan, a little raw honey would combine beautifully with the ginger and vanilla.

The perennial plant is a member of the Polygonaceae family and is widely grown outside and in hot greenhouses (hothouses). Rhubarb can be a healthy addition to your diet because it is naturally low in sugar and high in fiber. Many recipes that include rhubarb are desserts and can sometimes be high in sugar.

Rhubarb is a vegetable often thought to be a fruit. There's actually a good reason for this confusion: in 1947 the USDA classified it as a fruit because the tariffs on bringing fruits into the country were lower on fruits than vegetables. In actuality though, rhubarb is a vegetable - a member of the buckwheat family.

You can store frozen rhubarb for up to a year. That said, it will start to deteriorate a bit after 3 to 4 months. It won't spoil, but it will start to lose color and will be more likely to lose its structure when defrosted or cooked.

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.

Rhubarb is one of the best things to freeze because you can use frozen rhubarb just as you would fresh. Because of the blanching step, the color of recipes made with frozen rhubarb will match the rosy color of the fresh leafstalks—and the tangy flavor will be just as terrific.