Homemade Easter Egg Dye

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Learn how to make homemade Easter egg dye with this easy tutorial! You can dye Easter eggs without food coloring using vegetable scraps, spices, and vinegar.

Making homemade Easter egg dye without food coloring is a fun activity this time of year. There are many different natural dyes you can try in your kitchen.

To make DIY Easter egg dye, you boil water and add various vegetable scraps or spices. Then add vinegar, and you have a vibrant dye to color your hard boiled eggs.

How to Make Homemade Easter Egg Dye

Here are some combinations you can use to make homemade egg dye:

Pink: Chop one fresh medium beet and boil it in a pan with 4 cups of water. Strain the beet chunks and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

Red:  Take the skins off 4 red onions and simmer them in 2 cups of water for 20 minutes. Strain the onion skins and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 teaspoons of vinegar. (An alternative is to boil a tablespoon of paprika in a cup of water. Bring the water to room temperature and add 2 teaspoons of vinegar.)

Blue:  Chop ¼ head of red cabbage and boil it in 4 cups of water. Strain the cabbage and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

Yellow/Orange:  Take the skins off 4 onions and simmer them in 2 cups of water for 20 minutes. Strain the onion skins and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 teaspoons of vinegar.

Homemade Easter Egg Dye Results

Before starting these DIY Easter egg dye recipes, we noticed that the beets and the red cabbage were about the same color, so we were curious if they would really yield different colored eggs.

After boiling the cabbage, the water looked purple instead of blue. We were curious again, wondering how this would give us blue eggs. I was most skeptical about the onion skins, wondering how exactly they were going to make our eggs yellow.

The colors are more vibrant if the eggs are soaked overnight, so that’s what we did with most of our eggs. We did pull out a few eggs after just 10 minutes of steeping, and the colors were a bit muted in these eggs.

Surprisingly, the onion skins had the strongest and most immediate impact. This dye yielded a bright orange color.

The blue didn’t seem to be working at all in the early stages, but as the picture at the top shows, the blue eggs did come out beautifully in the morning.

For the red combinations, the red onion dye resulted in beautiful maroon eggs. The paprika eggs came out a bit speckled, and it seemed like actual grains of paprika were sticking to the eggs in a splotchy pattern. It gave a nice effect.

Try my homemade peanut butter eggs for a healthier Easter treat!

DIY Easter Egg Dye

Learn how to make this DIY Easter egg dye with this easy tutorial.

Print Recipe

Prep Time:10 minutes mins

Cook Time:20 minutes mins

Total Time:30 minutes mins

Recommended Equipment

• small pot
• fine mesh sieve
• 4 cup mason jar

Ingredients

• 1 beet
• 1 tbs paprika
• 1/4 head red cabbage
• 1/2 cup onion skins
• 5 1/3 tbs vinegar

Instructions

• Pink: Chop one medium beet and boil it in a pan with 4 cups of water. Strain the beet chunks and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 tablespoons of vinegar.
• Red: Boil a tablespoon of paprika in a cup of water. Bring the water to room temperature and add 2 teaspoons of vinegar.
• Blue: Chop ¼ head of red cabbage and boil it in 4 cups of water. Strain the cabbage and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 tablespoons of vinegar.
• Yellow: Take the skins off 4 onions and simmer them in 2 cups of water for 20 minutes. Strain the onion skins and bring the water to room temperature, then add 2 teaspoons of vinegar.
• Transfer each dye mixture to a separate jar. Soak hard boiled eggs overnight in each jar for the most vibrant color.
• Store the eggs in the refrigerator until ready to peel and eat.

Approximate Nutrition Info

Calories: 11kcal

Servings: 12

Calories: 11kcal

Author: Annemarie Rossi

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