Natural dyes for your Easter eggs

Easter’s just around the corner, and for a change from the marbled eggs you find on supermarket shelves, neatly wrapped in their hard plastic shells, like every year we’re racking our brains to find a nice, natural alternative that’s easy on the eyes!

So we decided to try out natural dyes to color our Easter eggs, and the results are amazing – with no waste, of course! Each egg becomes a little work of art, with different shades and subtle nuances… The chickens would be delighted!

All you need are a few ingredients, which you can easily find at your local market at this time of year, and in your cupboards! A few vegetables, spices, water, vinegar and a little patience.

In fact, without realizing it, our kitchens are full of natural dyes…

Turmeric for the yellow…

Purple kale for light blue…

A beautiful red cabbage for dark blue…

Beet for pink…

And vinegar to fix it.

Well, the pink was the least satisfactory shade in the test; it was a rather bland beige that came out… On the other hand, the yellows are luminous and the blues deep or gradient, depending on the results.

So, shall we go for it?

Implementation :

For all recipes, it’s best tostart by cooking your hard-boiled eggs for 10-12 minutes, except for the yolk, which can be cooked directly in the turmeric.

That’s all there is to it!

• For yellow

Boil 500ml water with 3 tbsp turmeric. Dip in egg and cook for 10-12min with 1tsp white vinegar.

• For reddish-brown

Use your red and/or yellow onion skins, about 2 large handfuls.

Boil in 500ml of water with 1 centilitre of white vinegar. Remove from heat and leave for 30 min.

Then dip the eggs in the liquid and leave to stand for 6 hours.

• For blue

You have 2 options: cabbage or hibiscus.

With cabbage: We used purple kale and red cabbage juice. The kale gave a pastel, slightly turquoise blue, and the red cabbage a beautiful duck blue.

1. Start by chopping the vegetables and cooking them in a pan of water for 20 minutes.
2. Once cooked, strain the juice – and eat your vegetables, so there’s no waste 🙂
3. Bring the juice to the boil, adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar. Remove from heat and dip in eggs.
4. Leave to stand for 30 min to several hours, checking regularly. The longer the cooking time, the darker the blue.

With hibiscus:

For raw eggs:

• And the pink…

Blend a large beet, still raw, in a blender with 2dl cold water.

Transfer to a large bowl or saucepan, add 1 tbsp white vinegar and immerse the previously cooked eggs for 2 hours.

And that’s all there is to making beautiful natural dyes for your Easter eggs.

Happy Easter!