Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

March 29, 2018 The Provident Princess 0 Comments

Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I am not a fan of all the dyes, fillers and engineered ingredients that are allowed in our food these days. For that reason, I am so excited to share with you a few ways you can dye food cheaply and naturally.

There are a lot of recipes of different ways to naturally dye eggs but some of them are ridiculously expensive. One recipe calls for 3 cups of blueberries! Even if I got the blueberries on sale for $1.50 for 6 oz, there is no way I am going to spend $4.50 to for just one color of dye. Or using half a cabbage. I don't like wasting things either. Although that does make an amazing deep blue color...

So I rummaged around in my cupboards and found a few things that are inexpensive and all natural.


Obviously you want to start with boiled, then cooled eggs. My mom swears that her 5-5-5 recipe results in perfect eggs every time. Place eggs in pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a low boil and boil for 5 minutes. Take off heat and let sit in hot water for 5 minutes. Dump out hot water and fill pan with ice/ very cold water for 5 minutes. Perfect color of yellow with no gray line. And easy to remove shells. You're welcome.

I wanted to try all kinds of colors. There were some I knew would work, but others were experiments. Green is a hard color. You can make green using spinach but I didn't want to use 2 cups of chopped spinach or boil it for 20 minutes. So I thought maybe I would try cucumber peel. It didn't work. My recipes are the easiest and fastest. I just put all my ingredients in canning jars and pour boiling water on top and let them steep until they cool (30-40 minutes). I strain them, add 1 Tbls of white vinegar and plop in a hard-boiled egg.

Blueberries, Tumeric, Cucumber Skins, Beets, Hibiscus Tea, Paprika, Onion Skins and Nettle Leaf Tea

Pink- Luckily, I had some roasted beets in the fridge to make Borscht with. So I used one of those. After it had colored the water and strained it, I stuck the chopped pieces back in the fridge for my Borscht. They were still tasty and had plenty of flavor. That's also why I wait to put the vinegar in until after it is strained.
Yellow- 1 Tbsp Turmeric
Green- I used a yellow turmeric egg then put in the blueberry mixture for 1 hour. It might not look green when you pull it out but wait for it to dry. It's a pretty sea foam green color. Or for a bright green, steep 2 cups chopped spinach in boiling water.
Blue- So I had smaller glass cups and thought it would be fun to try the blueberries. I just grabbed 1/4 c frozen blue and blackberries from a Costco fruit medley bag so it turned out to be pretty inexpensive.
Black- 3 bags of Hibiscus Tea. This one was surprising, I was thinking it would turn red like the tea but the eggs actually turned black.
Tan- 1 Tbsp Smoked Paprika. This one was fainter than I hoped. But it still worked ok.
Orange- Onion skins from 3 onions. Just crunch them up and put in the canning jar with boiled water
Brown- 3 bags of Nettle Leaf Tea. I was hoping this might turn green too but it turned more brown.
Purple- Dye one egg in the beets first, then switch to blueberry color for 30 minutes.


Designs-  House plants are perfect for using for making designes. I just used leaves from Piece Ivy, some blades of my Cordyline Indivisa, rubber bands, and the top of a strawberry. You can also use a white crayon to draw patterns with as well. I used some scrap pieces of cheesecloth to hold the leaves tight against the eggs and secured with twist ties.


I did these late at night. I tried 1 egg in the beets and 1 in the turmeric for about 30 minutes. They are the 2 on the bottom left. You can see the turmeric worked really well in that length of time and the beets turned it a light pink. I was tired so I filled the rest of my jars with eggs and stuck them outside. You can stick them in the fridge overnight but mine was full and luckily temps were like 36F. I like to use the egg carton to rest the drying eggs on.

L to R- Paprika, Beet (30min), Turmeric (30min), Turmeric (all night), Blueberry, Beets (all night), Beet and Blueberry mix, Hibiscus Tea, Nettle Leaf Tea, Onion Skins.

It's so fun to see how they all turned out. Didn't those designs turn out so fun? I love the strawberry top. The kids loved waking up and pulling the eggs out of the solutions to see how they changed. I love that this is a fun, inexpensive and all natural way to dye eggs. Let me know in the comments which ones are your favorites and if you plan to naturally dye your Easter Eggs too.

PP