Wellness Wednesdays: Make beautiful, naturally dyed Easter eggs

Time to make the Easter eggs.

You spent the time to get healthier alternatives into the Easter basket, bought organic eggs or fresh eggs from a friend’s backyard chickens.

Everything is all set for a healthy, non-toxic Easter morning celebration and now you’re going to use that box of whatever-it-is food dye to color your eggs?

Instead, try these natural food-based colors, ditch the artificial coloring for good and maybe save yourself some money in the process.

Keep in mind that the colors you achieve will be based on a number of factors, including the concentration of the dye, how long you keep the egg in the liquid, and the color of the egg you start with. Always shoot for more material rather than less, but if you’re using food scraps this could well cost you next to nothing!

Here’s some guidelines to follow:

Plan on at least 4 cups of dye per dozen eggs

Add 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar for every cup of water. You can color the eggs two ways. Either by cooking the eggs with the material in the same pot or the way you’re used to … after the eggs have been cooked.

Per cup of water use:

• 1 cup of chopped purple cabbage

white eggs Blue and brown eggs will go Green. 

(Turn it into a cool experiment with the kids by putting both white and brown eggs in with the cabbage and vinegar. By cooking the eggs in with the cabbage and you can save time, cook dinner and dye eggs at the same time.)

• 1 Cup of red onion skins

white eggs turn Lavender

brown eggs turn Red

• 1 Cup of Yellow onion skins will make:

white eggs turn Orange

brown eggs turn Rusty Red

• 1 cup shredded beets

White eggs turn Pink

brown eggs turn Maroon

• 2 Tbsp Ground Turmeric

all eggs turn shades of Yellow

• 1 or 2 Red Zinger tea bags

all eggs turn shades of Lavender

You can try these more complicated recipes too:

• Violet Blossoms + 2 teaspoons lemon juice + Red Zinger tea + a little grape juice = Lavender
• red onion skins + violet blossoms + red wine in with cooking eggs = Violet Blue
• Purple Grape juice + frozen blueberries = Blue
• Spinach leaves boiled with white eggs = Green

Pro Tips:

1. The Longer you leave the eggs in the water the more vibrant your colors will be.
2. When your eggs are colored and dry, rub them with a tiny bit of olive oil to give them a nice shine!

Want to take your eggs to another level? Check out this video!