Natural Easter Egg Dye Recipes (2024)

If you’ve been around Tried and Tasty for a little while, you know that there are certain things I’m trying to cut out of my kitchen. Artificial food coloring is one of them, I’ll talk more about that in a moment. With Easter rapidly approaching, I knew that mom’s everywhere would soon be thinking about coloring Easter eggs for the hunts that will be taking place all over the country! I mean, who doesn’t love coloring eggs in prep for the big festivities? I know I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my fair share of dunking hard boiled eggs in the kitchen in dye and decorating over the years. In fact, if you missed it, I’ve got a great way to hard boil a large amount of eggs all at once. Check out yesterday’s post for Oven Baked Hard Boiled Eggs! It will make your life so much easier as you’re trying to handle putting baskets together, hiding eggs, and whipping together a wonderful meal all at the same time.

So how about that getting rid of artificial food coloring eh? I’ve touched a teeny bit on why I’m kicking certain things out of my kitchen in My Weight Loss Story (if you haven’t checked it out, it’s a great read!). What it comes down to is there have been studies that show the harmful effects of artificial food coloring. I’ve read about it, I’ve watched documentaries on it, and I’ve really been strongly motivated to find natural alternatives. Food Matters, one of the documentaries I’ve watched has an excellent article ‘The Dark Side of Food Colors (Plus Natural Coloring Alternatives)‘ that is worth a look. My first experiment was with my Chocolate Mint Trifle. I tinted the cool whip with spinach juice to create a light green coloring. It worked beautifully and you couldn’t taste any sort of difference.

We’ve always got fruits and vegetables on hand, as my husband is a juicing fiend. I knew it would be easy to gather exactly what I needed to have a wide variety of colors. Brown onions, red onions, beets, blueberries, spinach, red cabbage, turmeric, and paprika. I was so excited to find out how each would turn out. For my experiment I decided to try the dye on both white & brown eggs. Most people dye with white, but I figured it would be nice to have a reference for each type. You can almost tell for each of the colors. In the pairs, you’ll find that the brown dyed egg is always on the left. The white dyed egg is on the right.

I was pleasantly surprised by all of them! In fact, it’s hard to pick a favorite. I like each one in their own way. I must say I was probably most impressed with the blueberries and most shocked by the red cabbage. It doesn’t make sense to me that red cabbage would create a blue dye. Does that shock you too? Or am I missing something obvious that should be clicking in my brain… but isn’t. I wished out of all of them that the green would have been darker (maybe because green is my favorite color?). After it was all said and done, I would have liked to have tried the green with kale or collard greens (both of which we also keep on hand for juicing). Maybe even a spinach/kale/collard combo would have made for a beautiful rich and vibrant green. Next time.

I know the question you are probably all thinking: did it affect the taste of your boiled eggs? Surprise: NO! Plus, even if it did, I feel a whole lot more comfortable with spinach juice seeping in to my egg than red #5. I’ve even eaten them plain – not mixed into or my Creamy Greek Yogurt Egg Salad Recipe (both of which are fantastic recipes might I add!). So, without further adieu, let’s get to the recipes shall we?

I gathered these fabulous ideas from the following places: In The Know: Make Easter Eggs With Natural Ingredients, Martha Stewart: Dyeing Eggs Naturally, The Kitchn: Vibrant Eggs, Dyed Naturally, & BHG: All-Natural Easter Egg Dye Recipes. For more great ideas on how to stock your kitchen with healthy options check out these other great posts:

• Get Healthy in 2014: Kitchen Basics Part I
• Get Healthy in 2014: Kitchen Basics Part II
• Get Healthy in 2014: Kitchen Basics Part III

Try these great ways to make & use boiled eggs (or faux eggs!)!

Linking up with: Artsy Fartsy Mama