I don’t ever recall dyeing Easter eggs in my life, even as a kid! So I thought this year I’d give it a try. Of course, I wanted to use natural dyes made from food. I looked up different natural dyes to make and thought I’d try:
Step 1- Cook the Eggs
The first step was to hard boil the eggs. With fresh eggs, I steam them to hard boil them instead of boiling them in water. This makes the eggs a lot easier to peel.
Step 2- Prepare the Dye
*I dyed 2 eggs per batch of dye. Some vegetables absorbed more of the water. You may want to add more water depending on how fast the water is simmering or the material used. You may want to use more material and water if you want to dye more eggs.
Step 3- Create the Dye
Step 4- Dye the Eggs
Step 5-Clean the Eggs
What worked and what didn’t
The eggs I used were all different colors- nearly white to dark brown, and green. So the natural dye showed up different on each of them.
I really like the turmeric and the red cabbage (it’s so pretty). The beet and coffee wasn’t as vibrant as I had hoped. They all look like planets!
The biggest disappointment was the parsley, which didn’t do much. I wondered if juicing the parsley would make it stronger. The parsley actually turned into a gel in the jar (I’d like to know the science behind this).
One thing that happened with the fresh eggs- The dye stuck to the ‘bloom’ of the eggs. The bloom, with all the dye, wanted to peel right off after sitting in the liquid. I didn’t realize I should have washed the eggs better beforehand. You don’t have to worry about this if you buy regular eggs at the supermarket since they arrive washed. Now I’ll be making some egg salad!