Apple Rhubarb Crunch Recipe with Oats

This apple rhubarb crunch recipe with oats dessert is amazing! Using fresh or frozen fruit like our Cranberry Apple Cobbler, we added an Old Fashioned oatmeal crisp to the top. It is great for brunch, breakfast or a light dessert.

Apple Rhubarb Recipe

Maybe it was something that was more commonly used “back then”. It must be because I had a hard time finding it in the store myself! SO, this year we are growing fresh rhubarb in our garden! Have you ever eaten rhubarb in any form before?

I think it honestly was something bought and baked with back in the day. My Grandmother used it like all the time in pies and in savory dishes too. I will admit it is harder to find it in grocery stores nowadays if you live in rural areas like we do. That is why I was so excited that it grew so well right at home.

Apple Rhubarb Crumble Ingredients

1. Fresh rhubarb is best
2. Apples – peeled and diced, we used Fuji
3. Sugar
4. Butter
5. Flour
6. Brown sugar
7. Old Fashioned Oats – not instant
8. Cinnamon
9. Cornstarch

You could use another fruit with it instead of apples if you wanted to. I think the texture is best with Fuji or Granny Smith but it’s your choice. This is more like a cobbler texture vs. our old fashioned fresh apple cake recipe which is fluffier.

How to Bake Frozen Rhubarb Crisp

I don’t see why you couldn’t use frozen rhubarb as well if it was out of season, it would just have more liquid and wouldn’t be as firm once it defrosted so the texture would be different than here. Your best bet is to leave in a bowl on the counter for 1.5 hours or so to thaw, drain all the liquid out and measure from there.

How to Bake with Fresh Rhubarb

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Peel your apples, core them, and cut into 1″ cubes. Slice fresh rhubarb into 3/4″-1″ pieces as well. Put these in a bowl.
3. In a bowl combine together your chunks of fresh fruit, white sugar and cornstarch. Mix together so fruit is nicely coated.
4. Pour your mixture into a greased square 8×8″ square baking dish.
   In another bowl mix your crunch ingredients together. I use 1/2 c brown sugar with melted butter, oats, and other ingredients.
5. It’s sweet for my taste. If you wanted it sweeter you could increase sugar to 3/4 c. Pour this over rhubarb mixture.
6. Put pan into the oven for about 40 minutes, until fruit is as tender as you’d like it to be and top is golden brown. Allow to cool on a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes before serving to solidify.

Serve topped with ice cream with any remaining crumbs or oats you have left over…or add some more. Once it’s lightly browned take it out and allow to cool a bit to solidify. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top when serving if you dare!

How long to bake apples and rhubarb?

Yes you could make a rhubarb crisp without oats for sure if you wanted to omit that ingredient. The timing wouldn’t change much either way. Typically if chopped into large bite size pieces both will become fork tender at 350 in 40 minutes or so with some butter to keep them from drying out.

This is great served warm with ice cream on top! We made enough to fill an 8×8 pan which was enough for the 5 of us to enjoy but you could easily double it if you wanted to really fill a 9×12 pan for more people.

Do you have to peel rhubarb before you cook it?

No. I didn’t. Some do use a peeler to remove some of the outside as you would with celery but it isn’t necessary. When I make this crunch recipe I don’t bother.

What happens if rhubarb is green?

Green rhubarb isn’t as sweet as it is unripe. It is safe though you would want to add more sugar into the mix or recipe. It just means that it hasn’t had as much time to ripen as other stalks which is why people prefer red.

Other easy desserts with fresh fruit

Once you’ve enjoyed our fresh rhubarb recipe you could use a few more green apples and make our Bisquick apple cobbler. That one is super simple to prepare and uses fresh fruit as well. A few other fresh fruit desserts are;

• Our pressure cooker jam can be made with anything, we used huckleberries!
• If you only have canned fruit pie filling, this dump peach cobbler is amazing.
• Fresh blueberry pie is one of my favorites, as well as oven baked apples in a cast iron pan.

This Instant Pot apple crisp takes just 1 minute to cook. If you want them with more texture I would actually set it for 0 minutes which sounds crazy but comes out perfectly every time. If you need sugar free rhubarb crisp you could use a sugar alternative and Splenda brown sugar. Find the printable recipe below with nutritional information such as calories and saturated fat too.