Last Updated on 20th July 2022 by
While rhubarb is pretty tart on its own, you can season it to make it sweeter and more palatable. It’s not a vegetable you see used in dishes very often, with the most famous rhubarb dish being rhubarb pie.
I will share with you my different methods to cook rhubarb some ideas of what you can do with it. Maybe you will want to give it a try and expand your cooking horizons a little bit.
How to Cook Rhubarb Pie
I feel like most people came to this article expecting a recipe for rhubarb pie, and I don’t want to disappoint. I know my first thought when I think of rhubarb is a steaming hot pie perfectly sweetened rhubarb.
Ingredients:
- 6 tablespoons of flour
- 4 cups of rhubarb, chopped
- 1 and 1/3 cups of white sugar
- 1 prepared double 9-inch pie crust
- 1 tablespoon of butter
Directions:
- Start by preheating the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare an oven rack at the bottom of your oven.
- Mix flour and sugar in a bowl and take a quarter of that mixture and spread it over the bottom of the pie crust.
- Add in rhubarb and sprinkle on the rest of the flour mixture. Dot butter throughout your filling and then place the top crust over everything.
- Set the pie in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.
- Then, lower the temperature down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for about 40 to 45 minutes. You know that your pie is done when the crust has turned golden brown and the filling is bubbly.
How to Cook Rhubarb without Sugar
Stewed rhubarb makes for a lovely sauce to put on desserts, pastries, breads, and other foods as a topping.
It’s usually made with a combination of sugar, water, and rhubarb, but you can make it without sugar. If you’re looking for a sugar substitute for this dish, you can replace the sugar with maple syrup, honey, or agave syrup.
How to cook rhubarb with sugar or with a sugar substitute? Start by washing the rhubarb and cutting off the leaves and the bottom of the stalks.
Then, cut the rhubarb into tiny pieces to help them cook faster. Put your rhubarb pieces into a small pot and put in enough water to cover them. Add in the sugar or sugar substitute and stir to mix the sugar room.
From there, the rhubarb needs to simmer. You should lower the heat and allow it to simmer for 10-15 minutes, giving it a stir every so often. If you have really ripe rhubarb, you may not need to cook it for as long, while slightly ripe rhubarb will need to cook for longer.
How to Cook Rhubarb for Crumble
Rhubarb crumble is very similar to rhubarb pie, but you will be using a sweet, sugary crumble mixture to cover it instead of a pie crust. This is a great dessert that is a superb use of rhubarb and a great alternative to the classic rhubarb pie.
Start by stewing the rhubarb as I directed above and then put it into a pie crust and top with sugar and pecan crumble.
Bake in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes until your crumble turns golden brown and then allow it to cool slightly before serving.
How to Cook Rhubarb in the Microwave
Are you looking to save some time and have less mess to clean up when you make rhubarb? You can try preparing it in the microwave instead of on the stovetop or in the oven.
The following directions are for making a rhubarb sauce, similar to stewed rhubarb, and you can use it as a topping for ice cream or other desserts.
Using a microwave safe bowl and a whisk, you can combine rhubarb, water, and sugar. Chopped, uncooked rhubarb is fine for this preparation method.
Warm your rhubarb mixture in the microwave with the dish uncovered and heat for 6-8 minutes. You can check to see if the rhubarb is tender at that point. Once it is, you can take it out and stir it to serve it like that or add in pudding mix for a lovely, creamy dessert.
If you are adding pudding mix, cook the entire mixture for 30-90 seconds in the microwave to finish it off.
For best results, mix it up every 30 seconds during that cooking process.
How to Cook Rhubarb Leaves
What should you do with rhubarb leaves? You can toss them out or use them as compost, but you do not want to cook with them.
They contain a toxic compound that you don’t want in your food, so don’t even try to cook with them like you would bay leaves and use them as seasoning and garnish.
They shouldn’t be anywhere near your food and should be chopped off the rhubarb stalks and discarded as soon as possible.
How to Cook Rhubarb with Sweetener
Rhubarb can be prepared with artificial sweeteners or natural sweeteners. You can use one of the methods above to make rhubarb and a sweetener for your choice into a pie or sauce.
You could also use the stewing method for how to cook rhubarb for jam. Just make sure that the rhubarb becomes really soft so that it will stir into a jam mixture easily.
You might want to throw in some lemon juice or orange zest to help flavor it and give the jam more of a citrus taste.
Boiling the rhubarb in sugar and water for about 45 minutes will make for a lovely jam, and it’s one of the simplest and best things to make with rhubarb.
Now you know how to cook rhubarb as a vegetable or a desert, and as you can see, there are a few different things you can do with this food. It’s versatile but often needs to be sweetened to be tasty.
I'm Pauline, a mother of four grown children, my passion for cooking stemmed from the joy i get cooking for my family. I love to try new dishes, especially when dining out but creating and sharing my own recipes is my favourite thing to do!
