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National Rhubarb Pie Day

Food · January 23

A day for rhubarb pie, the tart, pink-stalked dessert that turns a sour garden vegetable into a sweet, bubbling filling under a flaky crust.

National Rhubarb Pie Day falls on Saturday, January 23, 2027. That is 88 days away.

Rhubarb pie starts with an odd ingredient. Rhubarb is a vegetable, grown for its thick red and green stalks, and on its own it is sharply sour. Cooked with plenty of sugar and baked in a crust, it turns soft, jammy and bright, with a tang that keeps every bite from tasting too sweet.

Only the stalks go into the pie. The leaves are not eaten, so cooks trim them off and leave them in the garden or the compost. The stalks get sliced into short pieces, tossed with sugar and a thickener such as flour or cornstarch, and piled into a pastry shell. Some bakers add strawberries, which soften the sourness and deepen the pink color. Others keep it plain and let the rhubarb taste like itself.

The top crust is where people show their habits. A lattice lets the filling bubble up and darken at the edges. A full crust with a few slits keeps things tidy. A crumble topping of butter, sugar and oats is the lazy baker's favorite, and it holds up well.

Rhubarb has deep roots in American home gardens, where a single plant can come back year after year and produce more stalks than one household knows what to do with. That is how many families end up with a rhubarb pie recipe in the first place.

A slice tastes best a little warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting into the tart filling.

Ways to celebrate

• Bake a rhubarb pie with a lattice or crumble top.
• Try adding strawberries to the filling for a sweeter pie.
• Look for fresh rhubarb stalks at a farmers market.
• Share a slice with a neighbor who grows rhubarb.
• Ask an older relative for their family rhubarb pie recipe.

Dates

All national days on January 23

Also on January 23

• National Pie Day
• National Handwriting Day
• Measure Your Feet Day

Categories: Food days