Natural Egg Dyeing

We try to avoid artificial dyes and flavors as much as we possibly can, but it seems to be in everything these days. Especially around the holidays, like say Easter with all of its cute dishes containing colored eggs. No problem! You can dye eggs with natural ingredients around your house or from the store.

Dyeing eggs is one of my favorite Easter projects! Seriously I love dyeing eggs! Last year around this time our little cousins from the farm down the street came over for an egg dyeing pizza party! We had a blast!

Orange – Yellow Onion Skins, Cayenne Powder or Chili Powder

Brown – Tea, Expresso Powder or Coffee

Blue / Turquoise – Red Cabbage or Blueberries

Pink – Beets or Cranberries

Yellow – Tumeric Powder, Lemon, Carrots, Saffron or Orange Peels

Lavender – Grape Juice

Purple – Red Wine

Green – Parsley, Green Tea Spinach

Red – Yellow Onion Skins + 2 Tablespoons Vinegar

We used red cabbage, instant coffee, canned beets – we used the juice from the can as one dye then boiled the actual beets for a second one- and spinach. If you are using a solid vegetable instead of liquid like the juice of the beets or grape juice, chop the vegetables and boil until the water is colored.

Find containers that can hold the dye plus several eggs (bonus points if they have lids too!) Homemade dyes don’t work as quickly as the pellets of food coloring so expect to soak them for several hours to overnight depending on the look you are wanting. We left ours for 9 hours.

Boil desired amount of white eggs, prepare dyes and pour into containers. Place eggs into the container of dye, make sure all of the egg is covered. Place in the refrigerator until the desired color is reached.