How to Dye Easter Eggs - Natural Dyed Eggs

Natural Dyed Eggs using real, whole food ingredients. Swap the artificial colors and harsh dyes for things like spices, fruits, and vegetables.

Dying eggs at Easter is the equivalent of decorating cookies at Christmas, am I right? Lot's of prep involved, usually super messy, but also one of the traditions I look forward to every year.

Since we made the decision to homeschool last year, everything has turned in to some kind of learning opportunity. With that in mind, we decided to ditch the artificial colors and figure out how to dye Easter eggs using natural ingredients like vegetables, fruits, spices, and teas!

Jump to:

• How to Make Different Colors
• How to Hard Boil Eggs in the Instant Pot
• How to Make Natural Egg Dye
• Tips and Tricks
• How to Dye Easter Eggs

How to Make Different Colors

The vibrancy will vary greatly depending on how concentrated the dye is, what color egg you use (white or brown), as well as how long and how many times the eggs are immersed in the dye. Most of these colors peaked after around 20-30 minutes of soaking.

Note: Our backyard chickens lay brown eggs, but for these naturally dyed eggs I chose to use plain, store-bought, white eggs instead.

Red

Bright red is difficult to achieve naturally, but beets will make a beautiful pink color. While some of the other colors intensified with a longer soak (like when using the parsley), soaking longer in the beet dye did not result in a more "true red."

Orange

Onions will make an orange hue (the longer you soak them, the darker the color will be). Paprika will create a faint red-orange. Personally, I think these dyed orange eggs are too similar to a natural brown egg and not really worth the effort.

Yellow

Turmeric makes a lovely yellow color. You can also use orange peels or parsley for a more faint yellow color.

Green

Red onions will make a jade green color and yellow apples make more of a faint green-yellow. Green is another color that might be difficult to achieve naturally, unless you want to take the extra step of double dipping eggs to mix colors.

Blue

Blueberries or hibiscus tea will turn eggs a blueish-gray color while purple cabbage will turn them more of a light baby blue (an overnight soak yielded the brightest shade).

Purple

To achieve purple you will need to double dip. First soak the egg in a red mixture, allow it to dry completely, and then soak in a blue mixture. The blue tends to overpower the red, so this was another color that I didn't personally think was worth the effort.

Ingredients Needed

I listed several variations above, but to make these natural dyed eggs just as I did, you will need:

• Hard boiled eggs
• Beets
• Red cabbage
• Turmeric 
• Hibiscus tea 
• Parsley 
• Vegetable oil, optional, for rubbing eggs after coloring 

How to Hard Boil Eggs in the Instant Pot

I use the 5-5-5 method to make my Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs.  This method yields eggs that are truly hard boiled with a solid yolk.  I have tried making hard boiled eggs a number of different ways but these are by far the easiest! 

How to Make Natural Egg Dye

I prefer to use the cold dip method, where the eggs and the ingredients for the dye are boiled separately (as opposed to boiling the eggs in the dye). This produces subtle, translucent shades, but can sometimes result in uneven coloring if the eggs aren't rotated vigilantly while in the dye.

To prepare the ingredients for coloring the eggs:

1. Chop the ingredients.
2. Bring to a boil; simmer until desired color is achieved.
3. Remove from heat, strain ingredients, add dye to a glass cup.
4. Add eggs and allow to set until desired color.
5. Allow dyed eggs to dry completely before rinsing or rubbing with oil (to make them shiny, if desired).

Tips and Tricks

• Every egg will not turn out the same, even in the same dye color. There will naturally be different shades. 
• If you want your eggs to be more vibrant and less pastel: give the eggs multiple soaks in the dye, drying completely after each soak.
• The parsley dyed very light with 4 hours of soaking, but overnight it dyed darker. 
• You may need to use cheesecloth to strain the ingredients from the dye, depending on how small the pieces of ingredients are. 
• Don't immediately wash the eggs after soaking in the dye - allow the eggs to dry on a paper towel or in the carton to let the color really soak in.
• Be careful with the bowls you use to soak the eggs, the dyes may stain! I recommend using plastic disposable cups to prevent this.

Recipes Using Hard Boiled Eggs

• Spicy Chicken Salad
• Chick Themed Bento