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Making All Natural Easter Egg Dye is a fun and different way to color your Easter eggs. Discover all the beautiful colors you can get from things in your refrigerator.
Creating your own natural Easter egg dyes is a little bit more work than using the store bought dyes from the local grocery store but the colors you can create are beautiful and it is a fun science experiment for the kids.
Using fruits, vegetables and spices it is fun to see what colors they create.
how to dye eggs naturally
You can find just about everything you need in your produce department. The things I have had the best luck with are:
Blue Eggs – 2 cups red cabbage
Green Eggs – 2 cups red onion skins
Blue Gray Eggs – 1 cup blueberries
Orange Eggs – 2 Tbsp paprika will give you a light or 2 cups yellow onion skins will be more gold.
Yellow Eggs – 2 Tbsp turmeric
Pink Eggs – 1 beet
Salt
White Vinegar
A few things that didn’t work well were carrot tops and spinach. It was difficult to get a decent green color. They may have worked better if we had been more patient and let the eggs soak longer. Surprisingly red onion gives you somewhat of a green color!
Feel free to experiment with whatever produce you have on hand.
How to color eggs with natural dyes
For each dye:
- Place 2 cups of water into a pan on the stovetop.
- Add 1 tsp of salt.
- Place each ingredient into the pan and bring the water to a boil, and then let it continue to boil for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Strain the water from the pot and place it in a jar or bowl. Add 1 Tbsp white vinegar and allow to cool.
- Once cooled, you are ready to use your dye!
- Pour all the dyes into small plastic cups and use plastic spoons to take the eggs in and out of the cups.
- I wrote the name of what each one was on the plastic cups as well as on the table. (You will want to cover your table with plastic and or paper because this can get a bit messy!)
How to Hard Boil Eggs
Of course you will need hard boiled eggs too! My favorite way to hard boil eggs is in my Instant Pot. It is so easy and you will never do it any other way once you try it! Find my Instant Pot Hard Boiled Egg directions here.
how to get the best color on easter eggs
Natural dyes do not dye as quickly or as strongly as store bought dye so you need to have patience if you want brighter colors. But I personally love the softer more muted colors you get. For really bright colors you may need to leave it in the dye for an hour or more. Most of ours were only left in for 5 minutes or so. The longer they soak the more color they will absorb.
I think the colors are gorgeous! The blues we got from the blueberries were my favorite.
Check out more fun Easter Ideas:
Natural Easter Egg Dye Recipe
Natural Easter Egg Dye Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 chopped beet
- 2 C red onion skins
- 2 C yellow onion skins
- 2 Tbsp paprika
- 2 Tbsp turmeric
- 1 C blueberries
- 2 C red cabbage
- water
- salt
- white vinegar
Instructions
- Place each ingrredient into 2 C of water along with 1 tsp salt.
- Bring water to a boil and then boil for 10-15 minutes.
- Strain the water and place in a jar or bowl and add 1 Tbsp white vinegar to each dye.
- Allow them to cool before using.
Amy Huntley says
Love how these turned out! Such beautiful and natural looking colors!
erin says
Thanks for the instructions.
i had a blast doing this with my son and husband.
we colored the eggs with crayons then dyed them.
have a look
https://www.facebook.com/ecaskey2/media_set?set=a.10152014639356960.1073741836.594986959&type=1¬if_t=like
Leigh Anne says
Erin, They turned out great. Love the idea of using crayons on them first!
Jack says
I love blueberry eggs. Looks so natural. I hope my mother has them on her Easter list. Thanks for sharing.
Ann Leete says
For green you may try artichokes. Whenever we boil them, we have the prettiest green water afterwards. I’ve wanted dye eggs with this, but always forget.
The recipe I have for dying with onion skins and carrot tops have you boil the eggs in the dye mixture. They come out a little brighter. it is also real pretty if you put leafs on the egg, then wrap them in nylon stockings before dying- you get a white leaf print when you are all done. I will scan the old magazine clipping I have and send to you- so pretty! My brothers and I used to love to do this.
Leigh Anne says
Thanks for the great ideas! Next time I do artichokes I’m going to try dying an egg in the water. So fun!
Cynthia says
I love this. My kids are all big and we have not dyed Easter eggs in years. We are all about no chemicals/artificial stuff at our house, so this will be a fun, throwback activity. One question, how much blueberry did you use? I have read the directions several times and don’t see it listed. Thanks.
Leigh Anne says
I used a cup of blueberries Have fun!