“Love love love this recipe. And soooo easy! ” ~Jennifer
I’m madly trying to get the most out of the short rhubarb season. The other day when I asked my produce guy for some he went in the back and brought me out a HUGE armload of stalks. We’re leaving town this week so I need to preserve it for later. And I’ve always loved old fashioned fresh fruit butters, I love the smooth, silky texture, and I love the way the flavor is intensified.
Fruit butters don’t require sugar like traditional jams, and so the essence of the fruit comes through stronger. The only reason I used a little sugar in this recipe is that rhubarb is super tart. You can do this with lots of different fruit, from apples to peaches and plums. Berries too, but you’ll want to strain out the seeds. I have an incredibly silky Cranberry Butter recipe that you can make in the slow cooker. And in summer, don’t forget to make a batch or two of my amazing Peach Butter!
With no pectin, and very little, if any, sugar, this is an easy way to preserve fruit. You can blend varieties, or just stick to one. You can add spice or flavoring, too. I added cardamom to my rhubarb, but next time I’m going to use a vanilla bean.
More reasons to hoard rhubarb!
Rhubarb is such a unique flavor, and it’s around for such a short time, I go a little crazy with it during the season:
- Rhubarb Jelly
- Rhubarb Curd
- Rhubarb Bread
- Strawberry Rhubarb Smoothie
- Rhubarb Crisp with Cardamom and Vanilla
- Easy Rhubarb Breakfast Cake
- No Bake Rhubarb Dream Bars
“Just made this and it was soooo good! Delicious while still warm over vanilla ice cream! Mmmmm!” ~ Linda
Easy Rhubarb Butter
Ingredients
- 1 lb rhubarb, which is approximately 3-4 cups chopped
- 1/2 cup sugar
- squeeze of fresh lemon
- optional: 1/4 tsp cardamom, or cinnamon, or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean
Instructions
- Rinse the rhubarb and trim the ends Slice it into 1 inch pieces and put in a heavy bottomed pot along with the sugar. Add 2 tablespoons of water and the lemon juice, and stir to combine.
- Heat, stirring constantly, until the rhubarb starts to give off juice and the mixture comes to a boil. Boil gently for about 20-30 minutes, until the rhubarb is very soft and mostly broken down.
- Puree the mixture, in batches if necessary,. Be careful when pureeing hot liquids, as they can ‘explode’ up through the spout of the processor or blender.
- Put the puree in a clean pan back on the stove and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it gently bubble away until reduced and thickened about another 20 minutes, Stir often, and be careful not to let the fruit scorch. If you are using the spice or vanilla bean, stir it in now.
- Spoon the finished butter into a glass jar. Let cool, then cap and refrigerate. It will thicken further as it cools. You will have about a cup.
Notes
- If you want to make a larger batch, you can freeze this, and you can also can it. I just keep it in the fridge, it will be scarfed up within a couple of weeks.
- There is no firm rule about how long to cook the pureed fruit. The longer you cook it and reduce it down, the thicker it will be. It’s a matter of personal taste.
Nutrition
Is there a way to cook this in a crockpot instead of the stove?
Yes, same method, it will just take a lot longer.
Can this be made with a sugar substitute for diabetics?
That should work fine.
We subscribed for a farm delivery for June and one of the items in the box was a rhubarb. I worked with rhubarb for a first time and I tried first your rhubarb cake and then – the butter. The result was excellent! I have two more weeks of rhubarb coming our way and plan to check on more easy recipes for it 🙂 Thank you!
I’m anxious to try this. Could you use an emulsion blender instead of a food processor or blender? Thank you for a wonderful recipe. I love anything rhubarb!
Yes, that will work.
Oh, looks delicious! How many stalks in a pound I received Rhubarb from a CSA and have no idea of the weight.
Hi Beth ~ a pound of rhubarb will be about 3-4 cups chopped, I just added that to the recipe.
Sorry, I should have noticed it said that. I made it. It was so easy to make and absolutely delicious!!
After being rhubarbless for the 4 and a half years since leaving my beloved Alaska, I finally found some prime rhubarb at the farmer’s market yesterday (it just will not grow where we live now!) and ended up here for a rhubarb butter recipe that hopefully requires less sugar than the one I’ve always made, and I found it. As the Covid19 pandemic is in full swing at the moment, I didn’t want to use up any more of my precious and small sugar supply than I had to, so I made this with the Trivia/cane sugar blend I found forgotten in my cupboard. Even though the directions on the package said to sub half as much blend for the sugar in a recipe, it still turned out perfect, yay! Thank you for a spot-on recipe; you have a new recruit, Sue! I foresee a long and happy relationship between us!
I made this as directed with the addition of cardamom and pure vanilla extract and it was DELICIOUS! My only suggestion is to make a double recipe because a cup of this won’t last long enough. Thanks for a great recipe!
Would this work well with leftover pulp from making rhubarb jelly? The recipe I was given just uses the juice from the rhubarb and there’s a bunch of pulp leftover and it seems very wasteful to just throw it away. I’m looking for a way I could use it up.
I think you really need all the rhubarb for this recipe to work and taste right Brooke. You might try adding your pulp to smoothies.
I make a rhubarb simple syrup for beverage mixes and I do not toss the pulp. I grew up with rhubarb sauce. So, once I’ve drained what juice I need for my syrup, I jar the rest as sauce. My husband’s uncle raves that it’s the best sauce he’s ever had. The consistency is thicker – perfect for “butter”.
Thanks for this recipe! I made it in my instant pot with ginger as the spice in the quantity you called for and it’s awesome. Slightly tart, slightly warm. Delicious!
That’s great to know you can make it in the Instant Pot, I love that thing! Thanks Wysteria (love your name!)
how long did you cook it in the iP?
Hi, I’m getting ready to try this wonderful recipe. You said that it can be canned. Is that in a water bath canner for 10 minutes?
Would replacing the sugar with honey change the end consistency? Or would it just need to cook a bit longer?
Honey should work fine in place of sugar, and I don’t think it will effect the cooking time.