Natural Egg Dyeing

By Sharon Parker
ArtyDidact

2011 eggs, colored with turmeric (yellow) and red cabbage (blue)

For the last few years, I've been coloring eggs for Easter with natural dyes that use ordinary foods you may already have in your kitchen, or certainly could find easily at any grocery store. I've continued to do it after my first experimental efforts because it's just really satisfying to be able to thumb my nose at the product industries that want us to think we can't make anything in the kitchen that doesn't come out of a package.

It's really quite simple. In fact, I'm not convinced that mixing those little cups of commercial dye is any easier. It's just faster. Natural-dyed Easter eggs need to sit for several hours, and I've taken to letting them sit in the refrigerator overnight for best effect.

Grated beets, for pink eggs

I use the chart and instructions provided by Lakewinds Co-op (which you will find here). I figured out a few years ago that the amounts given in the chart are for coloring one egg, so you'll want to increase them proportionately if you're dyeing more eggs. Unfortunately, I didn't look at my notes until after I finished, so this year's batch might be a little more pastel than last year's.

The three colors I'm going for this year are saffron yellow (from turmeric), robin's egg blue (from red cabbage), and pink (from beets). I put the chopped or shredded vegetable or powdered spice in a wide-mouth quart jar, added a teaspoon of white vinegar, put in a little boiling water and stirred it, then added the already-cooked eggs and more water to cover.

And that's it. Now let 'em sit. I do stir them from time to time (a chopstick works well for this) to distribute the vegetable matter. But I don't worry about it too much, because some color variation is interesting anyway, right?

You can see how this year's eggs turned out here.

Now, if you don't like to waste food, you may wonder, what about the rest of that beet and the red cabbage?

This year's eggs, ready to set overnight

The red cabbage makes a very pretty cole slaw, especially when you add a grated carrot. Just dress it with a slightly sweet vinaigrette, because a creamy mayonnaise-based dressing will turn a little too pink!

I like to make a dressing with 2/3 or so olive oil and 1/3 balsamic vinegar, measuring a combined total of 1/4 cup, then add about 1/4 tsp kosher sea salt and a tsp. maple syrup. Maple syrup is great because it dissolves in cold liquids without congealing or tons of stirring.

Red cabbage and carrot cole slaw in the back, beet and cucumber salad to the front.

The beet I diced into small pieces and tossed with some diced cucumber in more of that light vinaigrette dressing. Yum!