Rhubarb Sauce
This simple, tangy rhubarb sauce recipe uses only three ingredients and produces the most delicious rhubarb topping you’ve ever tasted.
By Yankee Magazine|Apr 14 2022|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine KeenanI remember so well the time back in the early 1920s spent with my aunt and two cousins in Salem Depot, New Hampshire, every summer. My aunt was a wonderful cook, and one of the things I remember most is the rhubarb sauce she made. It tasted as though it had been mixed with strawberries. After I was married in 1936, she gave me her rhubarb sauce recipe. I have shared it with many friends, and everyone agrees: Follow the recipe to a T and you will have the most delicious rhubarb sauce you have ever tasted. –Stella Van Vloten, North Easton, Massachusetts
Yield:
Ingredients
2 cups water
2 scant cups sugar
3 pounds rhubarb cut into 1-inch pieces
Instructions
Make a syrup with the water and sugar. Boil together a few minutes.
Add rhubarb to syrup when it starts boiling in center. Watch closely and let boil just 1 minute.
Now here is the trick that makes ordinary rhubarb sauce a Sauce Deluxe: Pour into a bowl or pan with a tight cover. Leave tightly covered until cold, and you will find a sauce very different from any you have ever eaten.
This is, bar none, the best stewed rhubarb ever. It takes all the guess-work out of water and sugar quantities. It should be reprinted every rhubarb season.
I can’t believe you would spoil rhubarb by adding 2 cups of sugar. I make a delicious sauce with less than a cup of sugar. If I made your recipe my engine would over rev up and burn out.
Thanks so much for sharing your rhubarb recipe. I haven’t had rhubarb sauce taste this good for well over 30 years. I’ve even gone out and bought my very own rhubarb plants for next year.
The recipe I’ve used for many years is 4 c. chopped rhubarb and 3/4 c. sugar. Stir over low-medium heat for roughly 10 minutes and it looks like sauce. You can use a pinch of cinnamon if you like the flavor! No water is needed in this one!
I make a simple rhubarb sauce with no sugar. Cut up 2 cups rhubarb into 1″pieces. Place in saucepan and cover with about 1/2 cup or more of honey. Let sit overnight. In the morning the liquid in the rhubarb will have seeped out. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower heat and cook for two minutes. Cover and let cool. You can add some cinnamon and vanilla if you wish.
I just tried your rhubarb recipe and it turned out great! I added a dash of cinnamon and vanilla at the end and it is delicious. And the consistency is perfect. I did find it a bit sweet so I may try using slightly less sugar next time, but otherwise it’s terrific!
I’m looking for how to make “old time” ruhbarb sauce like my grandma used to make was always green in color. She made the best!
Pill your rhubarb so you use the meat part of the rhubarb. I used 3/4 cup suugar,1lb “4cupd”rhubarb 1/2 cup water
This recipe seemed too simple to be true – but just what I needed for a huge amount of rhubarb that had been given to me. I didn’t have time to make pies and decided it was worth a try. I did follow the recipe to a T – just like it said – and it turned out EXACTLY like it said it would!!! Soooo delicious and amazing. We can’t stop eating it!! I thought I would freeze it all – but only ended up with a small amount to freeze as we ate the rest. I will never use another recipe – this one is a real winner. I’ve even passed it on to a friend already. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful and simple recipe!!!
I would like to can rhubarb sauce, would this turn out if i processed it in a canner before letting it cool OR just placed bubbly rhubarb in canning jars and let self seal??
Hi Annie. Due to safety concerns with canning, we feel more comfortable sending you to the National Center for Home Food Preservation for guidance on your question about canning the rhubarb sauce. Hope this helps! http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html
my mom used to freeze portions and we would enjoy her fresh rhubarb in the middle of winter nice memories
About how many cups is 3 ib rhubarb cut into inch pieces? My rhubarb is coming from my backyard not the grocery. I don’t have a scale for something like that.
Thank you
Hi Melissa. According to the website Rhubarb-Central, one pound of rhubarb yields 3 cups chopped rhubarb, so for this recipe, it looks like 9 cups of chopped rhubarb should do it. Enjoy!
2 CUPS OF SUGAR FOR 3 LB OR 9 CUPS OF CHOPPED RHUBARB IS NOT TOO MUCH FOR MY TYPE OF RHUBARB !!! MY RHUBARB IS OF THE GREEN VARIETY AND MY PATCH IS MORE THAN 50 YRS OLD. I TRIED TO USE 1 CUP OF SUGAR FOR 5 1/2 CUPS RHUBARB AND THE CHUNKS OF RHUBARB ARE STILL TOO TART! BACK TO MY STANDARD OF 1/4 CUP SUGAR PER EACH CUP OF RHUBARB. STILL PLENTY SWEET TART FOR OLDER VARIETY. MY SAUCE IS 5 1/2 CUPS RHUBARB(CHOPPED TO 1/2-3/4″ PIECES FOR FAT STALKS) MIXED WITH 1 1/4 CUPS PLUS 1 TBSP SUGAR AND 3 TBSP. CORNSTARCH, AND 1/8 CUP OJ OR BERRY JUICE. STIR OVER MED HEAT TILL RHUBARB IS SOFT BUT NOT MUSHY AND THICKENED JUICES-ABOUT 10 MIN. REMOVE FROM HEAT TO COLD WATER BATH IF YOU WANT TO COOL IT QUICK. THE CORNSTARCH GIVES IT EXTRA BODY AND FIRMS UP NICELY WHEN CHILLED TO TOP CAKES, ETC….
This is positively the best recipe I’ve tried for rhubarb sauce. Just the perfect ratio of sweet to tart, and the beauty of the rhubarb chunks is so appealing, rather than the shredded, overcooked fruit I’ve done in the past. Thanks for sharing this !
I followed your recipe to the T, and I even covered it tightly until room temperature.
The best I have ever tasted. I will make it like this from now on!
MMM!!!! Made a rhubarb pie !! Had extra rhubarb made this sauce , and it is very good . Thank You !!!
I tried to make a Rhubarb sauce but it got thick. It does not look like a sauce. Just add more water??
My mom made this when she didn’t have time to make pies. We called it rhubarb soup. I make it for my family now. We love it!
Do you peel the rhubarb?? Thank you.
No you do not peel the rhubarb.
I have served something similar with whipped cream on top, and over vanilla ice cream. Do most people just use it unadorned?
I make my sauce in the microwave. I do not add water. I add the sugar after the sauce is the consistancy that I desire. Then I do not have more sugar than I need. Sometimes I add a strawberry jello mix while it is hot enough to melt the gel.
The rhubarb sauce recipe calls for 2 “scant” cups of sugar. What is a “scant” cup?
Hi Ken. A scant cup means the cup is barely full. It’s the opposite of a heaping cup, where the cup is domed or overflowing. Hope this helps!
When I got the New England Today email today and saw that you’d mentioned Rhubarb Sauce, I couldn’t wait to click on the link. And was delighted that once again you have shared a link to my great Aunt Selma’s Rhubarb Sauce recipe that my mother submitted to your magazine about 25 years ago, I think. My mother (who passed away in 1999) would be so happy to know that this family recipe lives on and is still enjoyed by so many people. Thank you, Yankee!!
Hi Anita! We’re so sorry to hear about your mom’s passing, but we can promise you that the rhubarb sauce recipe she shared with Yankee back in 1998 remains a reader-favorite today. The Yankee staff love it, too. 🙂 Our continued thanks to you, your mom, and your Great Aunt Selma for sharing this simple and delicious recipe with us. We look forward to sharing it with our readers and fans every year!
What does everyone use their rhubarb sauce on top of?
Pour the rhubarb sauce over ice cream, stir into plain Greek yogurt, add some raspberries, or pour over raspberry pie. I also like it on pancakes!
I put it on my cooked, plain oatmeal.
we’ve eaten it with warm and buttery toast!
I put it on top of pound cake ice cream, rhubarb and top with whipping cream
Do you take out the pieces of rhubarb once it’s done, or do you leave then in?
At Weight Watchers we learn to use a diet soda (Fresca or Sprite) and rhubarb, very easy and almost no calories. Good substitute for diabetics.
When I lived in New England we grew rhubarb it was wonderful but now we live in Florida and it is very difficult to get if at all and if you do it is expensive. We called the sauce “soup”, made it and froze it also.
Found rhubarb in mi so excited my mom use to make it w a pkg of fresh or frozen strawnerries remember leaves are poisinous
I have been eating rhubarb sauce since I was a kid… my mom made it every year.. my mom passed in August so now it’s up to me.. my mom always added less than a cup of raisins in hers… talk about delicious .. Mmmm Mmmm good!!!
Can you freeze small portions of the sauce?
I really wanted to like this, but I’m not a fan of the chunks. I expected to find a sauce when I took the cover off and was quite surprised at what the results were. I’ll be dumping it all back in a pan and cooking it down. 🙁
I’ll have to try this — my rhubarb plant is huge, so I’ll make extra to freeze. I’ve been using Monk sugar or stivia to sweeten, no nasty chemical taste as from artificial sweeteners.
I make my rhubarb sauce with two ingredients. I cut up three cups of rhubarb, place in saucepan and add some honey. Let it stand overnight, then bring to a boil in the morning. Once it starts to boil, turn the flame off and let it stand until cool. It is wonderful. You can adjust your sweetening.
If you don’t want chunks of rhubarb in your sauce, after it has boiled take an old-fashioned hand potato masher to it. PS My Maine SIL served us warm rhubarb sauce on vanilla ice cream with angelfood cake, a lovely combination.
I haven’t made Rhubarb sauce in years so I put it on my spring list of fun things to make during our stay at home order. My Swedish grandmother added a little grated orange peel to her recipe. Sweet memories.
I add a package of strawberry jello to the original recipe. Love it.
I got diabetes – just reading the recipe. I use 1/2 cup sugar and that’s plenty. You call for 2 cups.
I grew up in MA and there was a rhubarb plant in the front yard. I would pick a rib and eat it raw. Anyway, people have different taste levels and what is enough sugar to one would be too much or not enough to another. As with my cooking, I season to taste, not necessarily following the recipe exactly.
Friend adds spices to taste such as cinnamon, ginger powder, nutmeg puts over plain greek yogurt and tops with some pistachios. Looks pretty and tastes great
Tastes great over yogurt
There are new varieties of rhubarb-some more tart than others.Perhaps that explains why some people find that less sugar is necessary. My rhubarb plants are over 50 years old and very tart. Today they are only about 6″ high so I’ll have to wait another few weeks to try out this recipe but I think that the sugar amount will be just about right for me. Looking forward to experimenting with this recipe ! I love the combination of strawberries and rhubarb!
Mom used rhubarb to make a sauce (less water than this recipe). At the same time making a Blanc Mange (white pudding). When serving at room temp the sauce was spooned over a serving of the pudding. Whipped or heavy cream BBC optional
Thanks again, Aimee, for reprinting my Great Aunt Selma’s recipe for Rhubarb Sauce. I might add that my mother also submitted it to Dave Maynard who included it in one of his cookbooks. Not sure if you are old enough to remember him or not (well-known Boston radio announcer in the mid- to late-twentieth century), but he loved this sauce as well. Mum was so proud to think that her aunt’s recipe was enjoyed by so many people, thanks to her taking the time to submit it to Yankee and Dave Maynard. I like to think that Mumma and Aunt Selma were smiling down on me this morning as I clicked your link to once again read her submission!
Thanks, Anita! We are so glad to keep your Great Aunt Selma’s rhubarb sauce recipe alive and well! It’s delicious and everyone should try it. 🙂
Anita: I do remember those names in addition to Marjorie Mills! Plan on making this recipe soon-have read it several times.
Valia, originally from South Easton, Ma
My mom always made rhubarb sauce. We would have it cold in the morning on buttered toast. Delicious!
My grandmother and grandfather always had it on the table in season, and we would break up bread and pour rhubarb sauce over top of it I still like it that way
I don’t have a scale, how many cups is 3 pounds of rhubarb?
too much
You can weigh your rhubarb at the supermarket when you purchase. The always have weighing machines in the produce department.
Does anyone know the WW Sprite or Fresca Rhubarb Sauce previously mentioned by Downy K. on May 24, 2017? I’ve not found anything about it in the app
I’ve started growing my own rhubarb. I don’t use any water in mine it makes its own juices. Sugar, being a diabetic i use a little sugar substitute. comes out just good as the one listed.
Instead not using sugar substitute strawberry jello. Its the best for flavor and thickening.