Colouring Easter eggs with natural colourants

Colouring Easter eggs without artificial flavourants and colourants. For something a little different, when making and colouring your own eggs, try using natural colourants – you’ll be surprised to find that many herbs and spices and other foodstuffs you might have handy can give quite surprising colour tints to your boiled Easter eggs. Here is what you do for a quick Easter egg colouring craft.

Instructions ( see colouring options below)

1. Put your eggs in a fairly large pot

it should be large enough for four eggs to boil without touching or stacking.
Fun idea – why not draw on your eggs with wax crayon or candles before you colour them
the colouring will not adhere to the wax and your design will show off after the eggs have been coloured.
Or tie rubber bands around your eggs to have them look “tie-dyed” after colouring.

2. Fill the pan with water enough to cover the eggs by about 1cm

3. Add 2 tsp of white vinegar to the water

4. Add your dye colour (see ideas below).

Note that it may take quite a bit of dye material to get vivid colours, e.g. 2tbsp of Turmeric, 2 cups of onion skins, ¼ cup hibiscus flowers etc. It could be great fun having the kids experiment with different amounts of dye material to see the effects.

5. Boil your mixture and reduce to simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes

6. Remove the eggs with a strainer onto a bowl covered with towel (or I simply used the egg carton they came in) and let dry

7. If at this point you don’t think your eggs are coloured enough, you can add them back to your colouring liquid and leave overnight.

8. As a final touch, if you wish, gently rub cooking oil over your eggs to give them a shinier look

Colouring options

Red/Pink – Fresh beets, canned/frozen cherries
Orange – Yellow onion skins / Paprika
Light yellow – Lemon peels / Orange peels / Ground cumin spice / Chamomile tea
Golden yellow – Ground Turmeric
Blue – Red Cabbage Leaves (preboiled for about 30 minutes) / Blueberries (crushed)
Purple – Grape juice
Brown/Beige – Strong coffee / Black tea / Black walnuts shells
Golden brown – Dill seeds
Orange brown – Chili powder
Light green – Spinach leaves (boiled)
Violet / purple – Violet blossoms / Hibiscus tea / Red wine

**Pictured eggs made with Turmeric (gold) and variety of effects with Hibiscus tea (blue/purple)

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