3 Ways to Preserve Rhubarb At Home

Preserving rhubarb is a great way to get the most out of your harvest. Check out these easy ways to preserve your own rhubarb at home.

I have found rhubarb to be one the easiest things in the world to grow and almost impossible to kill. Sadly that was a lesson I learned a little too late, I don’t remember how plants we started with, but they grew very well. Our current rhubarb patch has survived two major transplants and two, soon to be three splittings, we have 10 plants at the moment, soon to be 20. Yes, you read that right 20 rhubarb plants! They serviced our last move so well, we have a bigger crop than ever this year, the plants are huge and so full I wasn’t sure what on earth we were going to be with it all.

Of course, there are plenty of baked goods to make, pies, and bars, that’s the whole reason we started growing it in the first place, but even though we have 10+ people I had a feeling there was no way we could eat enough baked goods to use up all that rhubarb. And I hate letting that food go to waste, so I set out to find a few things I could make with our bumper crop of rhubarb. Ways to preserve it and prevent it from going to waste. These are my top 3 ways to store and preserve rhubarb.

Freeze It

This might seem like a no-brainer to some people, but honesty till a few years ago freezing rhubarb never really crossed my mind. I’d frozen berries, Jalapenos, and even avocados before, but I never really thought of freezing rhubarb. But I’m glad I did, and I’m always glad to have a bag of frozen rhubarb to pull out when the carving for Strawberry Rhubarb pie hits in the dead of winter.
This is by far the easiest way to preserve rhubarb. It takes little to no time to do, and it lasts up to a year in the freezer.

How To Freeze Rhubarb

1. Pick your rhubarb, and cut off the leaves and the ends of each stalk.
   
2. Wash the rhubarb and let it air dry.
   
3. Label the bags with the month and year.
   
4. Slice it into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. Put the sliced rhubarb into quart-size freezer bags. I do 2 cups per bag.
   
5. Seal the bags and shake them a little so the piece spread out and the bag lays flat(this works best for stacking and storing them in the freezer).

Make Rhubarb Jam

A couple of years ago, my Mum found this Jam recipe, and let me just say Shaye Elliott you are one of the favorite people on earth for creating this recipe. This jam is seriously amazing, it’s like fall in a jar and it tastes a bit like a homemade apple pie. Honestly, this is got to be one of my all-time favorite recipes. It’s easy to make, use honey instead of sugar, and you can whip up a fairly large batch in less than an hour. This was also the first recipe that introduced me to the European canning method. If you’ve never heard of it before, trust me you’ll love it. It makes canning 10 times easier and removes the need for a water bath.
For some reason, I didn’t around to making it last year, and that was rather disappointing, especially once fall hit. So this year I have plans to make a lot. At least enough to last us till November, then again with how good this jam is and how much we love it, I doubt it will last half that long.

What Is European canning?

To give a quick explanation. You’ll prepare like normal, clean your jars, and lids, keep them warm if at all possible, then prepare your jam(or whatever you are making). Make sure your mixture is hot, very hot almost. Then spoon it into the jars, screw on the lids, and flip the jars upside down. The heat from the jam causes the jars to seal and eliminates the need to use a water bath to seal the jars. If the jars seal properly your jam will last just as long as it would if you used a regular canning method. Personally, I’ve only used this method for jam, but my sister uses it when she cans her salsa and I’m hoping to experiment more with it this year.

Pickle Your rhubarb

This is the first year I’ve tried pickling rhubarb and let’s just say it was quite the endeavor. I was a little more out of canning practice than I had thought, turns out skipping a year does affect you. My first batch didn’t turn out at all, I broke one jar, and the other one wouldn’t seal properly. Needless to say, I’ve had better days, and my second attempt went much better, thankfully.
Pickling rhubarb was another one of those things that have been on my list of things to try for years now, I don’t remember where I first saw the idea or why it took me so long to try it. But I’m glad I finally did. I can’t wait to crack one of those open and serve it with cheese and wine later in the year.
Sorry I don’t have a recipe for this, I am currently working on one, but needless to say, I’m not sure whether it’s good or not yet. If you can look on google or Pinterest for a recipe if you are wanting to give this a try.

As I said before these are just a few of many ways to preserve rhubarb, there are many, many more ways and methods. But in my opinion, these are some of the best, and easiest ways to get the most out of your rhubarb harvest.

Looking for more ways to use your rhubarb?

Check out these recipes!

Homemade Rhubarb Bars

Rhubarb Pie – Made with fresh rhubarb!