Happy Easter! We love this tradition of naturally dyed eggs. It’s a fun activity to do together - creating the dye as well as dying the eggs.
I love the look of naturally dyed eggs. You never know what to expect and it’s so easy to do. We chose red cabbage, turmeric & beets for our dyes this year. Other common things you can use are yellow onions, blueberries, coffee and spinach.
What you will need:
- red cabbage
- turmeric spice
- beets
- water
- white vinegar
- eggs to dye*
- large pot
- colander
- cups/jars for dye
- something to get your eggs out of dye
*we hard boiled our eggs before dyeing
For cabbage:
makes blue dye
- 1 head red cabbage, chopped
- large pot for boiling water
- 4-5 cups of water - you want the cabbage to be covered
- 1- 1 1/4 tbs vinegar
Toss chopped cabbage into large pot of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-30 minute. The water will immediately turn blue, it’s very cool to watch. When it is complete, add 1 1/4 tbsp vinegar. Let sit a few minutes and then use the colander to drain the liquid into another container (make sure you don’t pour it down the drain). Discard the cabbage, keeping the liquid.
For turmeric:
makes yellow dye
- 1-2 tbsp turmeric spice
- large pot for boiling water
- 4 cups of water
- 1 tbsp vinegar
Put turmeric into about 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Once complete add 1 tbsp vinegar. You can strain this as well or keep the water as is.
To achieve the the color green if you aren't trying out spinach, simply mix the cabbage and turmeric dyes together to create a green
For beets:
makes pink dye
- 2-3 beets, sliced thin
- large pot for boiling water
- 4 cups of water - you want the beets to be covered
- 1 tbsp vinegar
Put beets in about 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Once complete add 1 tbsp vinegar. Using a colander, strain the beets, remembering to keep the dye water.
We have done this for 3 years now and it is cool to see how the eggs turn out different each year. This was our first year to try beets, and while they came out so vibrant at first they lost some of their color over time. This year I accidentally put the vinegar into the boiling water and I think it takes some of the color out of the dye.* But we still had a great time watching and waiting for the eggs to change colors.
Naturally dyeing eggs does take longer than the little color tablets but I would much rather have vegetables seep into my eggs than whatever is in those. We kept some in for hours and even overnight. I would say the turmeric takes the least amount of time for a vibrant look.
Okay, now it's time to get dyeing. If you do these please let me know how they turned out. I would definitely love to see them, especially some spinach or blueberry ones. Maybe we will have to try those next year.
*If you accidentally do this, I found that adding a bit of baking soda can help pull the color back out.