DIY Food

Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

March 29, 2013

Every week, a DIY expert spares us a trip to the grocery store and shows us how to make small batches of great foods at home.

Today, Dulcie and Sarah from Two Tarts show us how to make colorful, naturally dyed eggs -- which means you can safely enjoy your bounty after dominating this year's Easter egg hunt.

eggs1

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Colorful Easter eggs are a welcome sign of spring, as well as a fun kitchen project -- made even more enjoyable when you use natural, homemade dye. It’s a very simple process, and it yields eggs that glow with gentle, natural color rather than the in-your-face brightness that commercial dyes create. The list of ingredients is short and wholesome, so after your Easter egg hunt, you can eat them any way you’d like without worrying about weird chemicals seeping through the eggshells.

To dye your eggs, all you need is water, plain white vinegar, and your choice of dye -- our favorites are beet, blueberry, coffee, and turmeric. You can soak the eggs in dye for just a few minutes, as we did, or as long as overnight, which deepens the eggs' color. 

The real fun begins with you start to experiment with double-dipping your eggs. A soak in blueberry followed by a quick dunk in turmeric resulted in a gorgeous robin’s egg blue. Beet followed by blueberry resulted in a soft fuchsia-purple. There are so many other fruits and vegetables you could use -- consider purple cabbage or bright orange carrots.

eggspromo

Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

Makes 12 eggs

1 cup shredded fruit or vegetable (beets, blueberries, etc)
4 tablespoons turmeric (for yellow eggs)
1 1/2 cups brewed coffee (for tan eggs)
2 cups water
1/4 cup white vinegar per color
12 hard boiled white eggs

turmeric shred

First, shred or mash your produce. You’ll need roughly one cup, to which you’ll add 2 cups of water and 1/4 cup white vinegar.  

vinegar

Next, simmer the mixture on the stovetop for 10 minutes or so to help release the pigment and concentrate the color. When the simmering is done, pour the pulp-filled dye through a strainer and into a large mason jar. Dip and soak eggs until your heart's content. 

coffee beet

After the egg’s colorful bath, pat it dry with paper towels or rinse it under water to remove any stray spots or streaks. Let the eggs dry, and enjoy. Happy hunting!

Other variations:

• For tan eggs, we dipped our eggs in 1 1/2 cups brewed coffee and 1/4 cup vinegar. We didn't use water, and we did not simmer the coffee mixture.
• For yellow eggs, we used 4 tablespoons turmeric, 2 cups water, and 1/4 cup vinegar. We didn't simmer this one, either.

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here. 

eggs78

Photos by Sarah Welle & Dulcie Wilcox

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

  • Fairmount_market
    Fairmount_market
  • Yessica
    Yessica
  • Cathy Huyghe
    Cathy Huyghe
  • aargersi
    aargersi
  • hardlikearmour
    hardlikearmour
We are two friends in Colorado - Dulcie and Sarah. We love simple seasonal recipes and cocktails, especially things that look impressive but are actually easy to make. We also love DIY cooking projects!

11 Comments

Fairmount_market March 30, 2013
Inspired by this post, I nestled some eggs into some homemade red cabbage sauerkraut and the results were spectacular!
 
Dulcie&Sarah March 30, 2013
That sounds like it'd be cool looking!
 
Yessica March 30, 2013
This is a great idea. Thanks!
 
Cathy H. March 29, 2013
I'm so doing this with the kids this weekend... Thanks for saving my waited-till-the-last-minute butt!
 
Dulcie&Sarah March 29, 2013
Hope you enjoy it! It's kinda messy, which kids love :)
 
aargersi March 29, 2013
Absolutely love this - and HLAs article too - maybe I can carve out some time this weekend? Or just have non-Easter dyed eggs!
 
Dulcie&Sarah March 29, 2013
That's what I've been doing all week, since I wrote this post before it was actually Easter. It's really fun to have colorful pastel eggs in the fridge on a regular day. I've been eating them on salads! :)
 
hardlikearmour March 29, 2013
Here are some more ideas for naturally dyed eggs -- mostly the same as yours as far as colors go, but with an added option of creating a leaf print on the egg: http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2013/03/the_pecks_easter_egg_dyes_made.html
 
laurenlocally March 29, 2013
How fun is the leaf print!
 
Dulcie&Sarah March 29, 2013
So cool, so pretty. Love it!
 
jennifer B. April 19, 2014
Awesome, I can't wait to try it.