Rhubarb home canning recipes
Here is our growing collection of rhubarb recipes for home canning.
For dehydrating information see: drying rhubarb.
For freezing directions, see “Freezing Rhubarb” over on the site for the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
A general word about rhubarb
Rhubarb is one of those ingredients that is like prized gold to home canners.
Rhubarb used to grow in abundance like a weed in people’s backyards and at the sides of houses and paths, prospering through neglect. It’s long since fallen out of fashion with foodies, and been dug out to make way for more fashionable plants, or, the backyards built over to increase urban density.
Consequently, in stores it’s now quite pricey, and it’s very rare to get it for free from someone who begs you to take bags of it away and use it. It’s joined the ranks of green tomatoes as an ingredient people plot how to get hold of.
It’s a hardy plant and will do well with little care in a sunny spot. If you do ever decide to plant your own, bear in mind that the plant will need at least three years before it will produce crops in abundance. Iowa State Extension has solid advice on planting and harvesting rhubarb (it’s a myth that you can only pick it in the spring.)
Whatever you do, do not eat, let alone can, the leafy part. Rhubarb “greens” are highly toxic. Use only the stalks. During WW1, overly-eager Extension Agents encouraged Americans to eat rhubarb leaves as a supplement to fresh vegetables, which added a few home front casualties to the overall toll of the war.
See here for more general information and history about rhubarb.
Dawn Wagner
Okay, earnestly, somehow, my Ball book has literally vanished from my kitchen, quite possibly shortly after our house fire in 2014. Although some canning recipes are normally easy to get my hands on, I am literally just looking for a plain old processing & canning recipe for the rhubarb in my garden which was donated to me from a girlfriend who did not want her young daughters near it, (I would assume because of leaf toxicity). Just and plain….cook and water bath canning…..recipe. Everyone throws this and that in, and one website doesn’t even have cooking times, mentioned, let along any measurements I’ve never canned rhubarb before, but I do remember it from my childhood and would prefer to begin preserving it. Any help would be deeply appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.
Healthy Canning
Hi Dawn, the above collection of rhubarb canning recipes and techniques should be of some use.