Easter Egg Coloring the Natural Way – Plus a Recipe for Eating Your Eggs

Thinking back to when you were a kid, did you dye Easter eggs? I remember it as one of my favorite Springtime pastimes.

Dyeing eggs in Spring is a tradition going back thousands of years. Eggs are a symbol of new life, rebirth, fertility and wholeness. And it’s fun for kids and kids at heart.

I’m filing this post in “Food as Medicine,” as sometimes the best “medicine” is simply having fun. I had fun dying eggs using one of my favorite spices as a natural dye, as you’ll see in the video.

My assistant Rebecca took our Easter egg coloring experiment even further. After the video you can see the lovely colors she created using various foods as all-natural non-toxic dyes.

Plus, as your naturally dyed eggs are safe for eating, I’ve included a recipe for Sunshine Stuffed Eggs at the end — a delicious and healthy lemony/turmeric variation on deviled eggs!

Easter Egg Coloring: Synthetic Dyes vs. The Natural Way

How do most people dye eggs? If you’re anything like me, growing up you probably bought the kits. They came packed with bright colored tablets, and every tool you’d need, often even including designs to help you customize your eggs.

The steps were simple, get some eggs, drop the tablets in cold water and then dip the eggs in the water. Bam, bright neon colored eggs in seconds.

But what about what’s actually in those kits?

While these kits are for the most part safe, they’re filled with synthetic dyes. And just like most people would rather use natural dyes for everything from their food to their hair dye, Easter eggs shouldn’t be an exception.

So how do you dye eggs without these kits, and does it actually work as well as the traditional kits?

six brown eggs

I think so …

Making the Natural Dye for Golden Turmeric Eggs

Gently boil together 2 tablespoons of turmeric powder with one tablespoon of vinegar and one cup of water.

For the deep red variation, omit the vinegar and add one tablespoon of baking soda.

What Else Can You Use as Natural Egg Dye?

Dyeing eggs naturally is a lot simpler than one might think. Ingredients such as turmeric, coffee, onions, and cabbage are all examples of foods that will work to dye eggs a great variety of colors.

Here are some foods that will easily dye eggs:

Coffee: Brown on either color of eggs
Spinach: White or brown eggs while producing a green color but the color of the egg will determine the shade of green made.
Raspberries: White eggs create bright pink color and brown eggs create a burgundy.
Beets: On white eggs, it will be a bright pink on brown eggs it’s a dark maroon.
Red Cabbage: On white eggs, the color resembles a light blue and on brown eggs, it can be dark blue, sometimes with a tint of brown.
Red Onion: On white eggs the color is a bright yellow and brown eggs create a dark orange.
Yellow/White Onion: For those who want a type of design wrapping white eggs in onion skin works. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work as well on brown eggs or with colors besides the yellow from the onion skin.

Now while you may not be able to get a leopard print neon egg, you can still easily obtain rich deep colors that are arguably just as, if not more, beautiful. There are also different methods to get marbled patterns which are not much more complex than the kit version.

Looking at various articles[i] [ii][iii][iv], when it comes to the water to food ratio, the best rule I found is that the more food you put in the deeper the color, the less food used the softer the color would be.

Though some recipes called for large quantities of food ingredients, I found that you could easily eyeball it as the foods were soaking and add more as needed.

Steps/Ingredients for Natural Easter Egg Coloring:

What you will need:

Water
Eggs (white or brown)
Vinegar (distilled white vinegar is best)
Foods to use as dye
Bowls or containers

If following the patterned eggs steps, additionally you’ll need:

Paper towels
Rubber bands or twine
A weight to keep eggs submerged

Step One

Cabbage, Onions and Beets, all minced

For perfect boiled eggs, place eggs in pan. Submerge in cold water. Slowly bring to a boil on medium heat. When they start to boil, cover the pan with a lid, turn the heat off and let them sit for at least 10 minutes.

Step Two

Prepare the the different foods by chopping up the root vegetables, measuring out spices, or separating leaves. I found that bigger is better for things like onion, cabbage, and spinach. Try to keep the leaves and skin as large as possible. For foods such as beets and raspberry, the size did not matter so much as the ratio to water.

Step Three

Place your chosen dye ingredient in the boiling water with the vinegar at a ratio of one tablespoon of vinegar per cup of water. Let this boil for 10-15 minutes

Step Four

Use a spoon to scoop out some of the liquid to test the color. After the water takes on the desired color, remove the water from the heat. Pour your dye in a container deep enough for the eggs to be completely submerged and then gently place the eggs in the water.

jars with juice extracts

Step Five

Place the eggs in the dye. For white eggs, you can leave them in briefly for pastel colors. For brighter colors, let them sit in the dye overnight. For the best results with brown eggs, leave them in the dye for at least 30 minutes or even better overnight.

Step Six

Once the eggs have been dyed, put them back into the egg carton to let them dry. As the eggs fully dry, they will change color — sometimes dramatically! For instance, eggs dyed with red cabbage appear brownish when wet and blue when dry .

If plain colors aren’t your style and you want a little more flare, fear not. As mentioned before, dyeing eggs naturally doesn’t completely take away the possibility of getting patterned eggs.