Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling

This delicious home-canned pie filling makes throwing together a homemade pie the work of minutes.

Each jar makes 1 pie. Width of the pie is your choice: 20 or 23 cm (8 or 9 inch).

This is a lab-tested recipe from the Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving.

We also have listed recipes for Strawberry Pie Filling and Rhubarb Pie Filling on their own.

The recipe

Jar size choices: Half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml / 16 oz)

Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning

Yield: 5 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Headspace: 3 cm (1 inch)

Processing time: 15 minutes

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Rhubarb Strawberry Pie Filling

Yield: 5 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Pie Filling, Rhubarb

Prep Time 45 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Yield 5 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Calories 514 kcal

Ingredients

• 750 g rhubarb (1 ¾ lbs. That's about 7 cups when chopped into 1 inch / 2.5 cm pieces)
• 3 apples (large. peeled, cored and chopped. Weight of about 750 g / 1.5 lb before being prepared)
• 400 g sugar (white. 2 cups / ¾ lb) OR 2 cups Splenda OR 2 teaspoons liquid stevia
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• 4 tablespoons orange juice (¼ cup / 2 oz)
• 500 g strawberries (about 1 US quart / 4 cups.) Measured after being washed and hulled

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Put everything from the rhubarb down to the orange juice in a large pot. Cover and bring to a boil; then remove the cover and reduce to a gentle simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the rhubarb pieces are soft. Stir frequently and deeply, to avoid scorching.
2. Stir in prepared strawberries, bring back to the boil, then turn heat off.

3. (Optional)If you are using liquid stevia, you can add a bit more if desired, to taste. But don't add sugar at this point, it won't dissolve.

4. Pack hot into half-litre (US pint) jars.
5. Leave 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
6. Debubble, adjust headspace.
7. Wipe jar rims.
8. Put lids on.
9. Process in a water bath or steam canner.
10. Process jars for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.

Reference information

How to water bath process.

How to steam can.

When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.

For stevia, Better Stevia liquid stevia was the stevia used.

More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.

Recipe notes

• One medium-sized orange will supply you with the zest and juice you need. If you don’t have an orange on hand, you could use zest from a lemon or omit. And in place of orange juice, you could use a similarly acidic fruit juice (pH of 4.6 and below) such as apple juice or cranberry juice. Lemon juice would also be fine acidity-wise, but might be too tart unless you add more sweetener to balance it out.
• When you first turn the mixture on to boil, you might wonder about the lack of liquid but a lot of liquid will appear once the heat starts to hit the mixture.
• A heat diffuser between the burner and the pot can be ideal, to prevent sticking and scorching at the bottom. If you use one, allow the mixture to simmer a bit longer, 20 to 25 minutes.
• Do not add any thickening agent, as it could interfere with safe and thorough heat penetration of the jar during processing. But, you will not even feel the desire to: it thickens up a lot all on its own.
• You can use smaller jars, and process for the same 15 minutes, but there are no tested times given for larger size jars.
• You can use the food processor to finely chop the apples (just peel and core first). Do one apple at a time.
• Use whatever apples you have to hand. Pieces of apples such as Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, etc, will maintain their shape a bit better, if that’s something you want. Instead of the 3 large apples, you could use a ½ litre (1 US pint) jar of home-canned apple slices,  juice and all. Just chop them up a bit further after opening the jar before adding to mixture.
• You can use frozen strawberries and rhubarb. If so, thaw just until the fruit pieces can come apart to be measured, then thawing, and then after thawing, include into the pot any juice that comes off.

Directions for use

Make a bottom and top pie crust.

Line pie tin with bottom crust.

Fill with one jar of this pie filling.

Cover with a top crust, poke some fork holes through it. (Optional: turn that into a classic lattice top crust.)

Optional: brush top crust and crust edges with a bit of milk to aid browning.

Bake for about 25 minutes at 175 C (350 F) or until crust is golden brown. There’s no need to worry about needing to cook the filling longer as it is already cooked.

Tip: Traditional pie crust can be quite high cal. If you want to keep the entire desert low cal, try making tarts with the shells made from 3 or 4 layers of thawed-from-frozen filo pastry crust.

Recipe Source

Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Bernardin Ltd. 2013. Page 40.

Note: We have not been able to find anywhere a tested processing time for larger 1 litre (1 US quart / 32 oz) jars for this recipe.

Nutrition information

How calories this will end up being per actual serving will depend on how many slices of pie you get out of your pie, or how many tarts you make, and what kind of crust you use. Nutrition information is therefore per jar.

Regular Version

Per 1 jar (½ litre / 1 US pint / 2 cups / 16 fluid oz)

• 514 calories, 8 mg sodium

Sugar-free Version

Imagine how low cal a slice of this pie is going to be, even with a crust…

Per 1 jar (½ litre / 1 US pint / 2 cups / 16 fluid oz)

• 139 calories, 8 mg sodium
• Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 jar: 4 points

* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com

* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.

* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.