Vegetable-Dyed Easter Eggs

Put the last of the season’s root vegetables to good use for this Easter kitchen project! Vegetable dyes won’t give you vibrantly colored Easter eggs – the hues are much more subtle and natural looking, almost as if you raided the nests of different chicken breeds.

Making your own vegetable dye is a little more labor-intensive than sticking a dye tablet in a coffee cup, but it’s so much more fun, because different vegetables produce colors that you wouldn’t expect. Red onion skins, for example, produce a lovely blue-ish color.  I experimented with several different types of fruits and vegetables, some that worked, and some that didn’t. Fails: Pomegranate juice (turned the eggs brown…not so pretty) and yellow beets (the color of the water was bright, bright yellow, but unfortunately the color didn’t adhere to the eggs). Wins: red beets, turmeric (both fresh and powdered), yellow onions, and red onions. I wanted the brightest colors that I could get, so I used a multi-phased method: 1) creating the dye; 2) boiling the eggs in the dye; 3) cooling the dye and soaking the boiled eggs in the dye. Vinegar is must, because it helps the natural vegetable dye adhere to the eggs. Normally when I make hard-boiled eggs, I immediately plunge the boiled eggs into ice water to stop the cooking process. I was afraid this would make some of the color come off, so I skipped this step. Just note that your eggs may not be as perfectly boiled as they normally would be sans dyeing experimentation.

It’s fun to play around with different volumes of vegetables. For the onions, I used 3-4 medium onions per color. For the beets, 4 medium. For the turmeric, I used 3 fresh rhizomes plus 1 tablespoon powdered. Different ratios of vegetables to water will produce different results.

Ingredients:

Red onion skins (purpley-blue)
Yellow onion skins (dark golden yellow-ish brown)
Red beets, sliced thinly (pinkish)
Turmeric, either fresh (sliced thinly) or powdered (bright yellow)
White vinegar
White eggs (don’t use brown eggs for obvious reasons)

Procedure:

1. For all of the vegetables: add the vegetables to a medium pot. Cover with enough water that will later be able to cover the eggs. Add 1 tablespoon white vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat and cool to room temperature. (At this point, you can also soak the mixture overnight for more vibrant colors.)
2. Once the dye mixture has cooled, remove the vegetables and discard (or eat or compost). Add the eggs to the dye water. (The eggs should be completely covered by the dye. If not, add a bit more cold water to cover.) Add another 2 tablespoons white vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. As soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, turn down the heat so that the water is just simmering, cover the pan, and simmer for 10-11 minutes. Remove the eggs to cool.
3. At this point, you can leave the eggs as-is if you like their subtle color. Or, for more vibrant hues, cool the dye water slightly (I poured the dye water into measuring cups).  Add the eggs back to the dye water and let soak until they are the color you want. At this point, you can combine colors – I dipped an egg in the turmeric mixture than then the beet mixture to get an orange-ish color. Remove carefully, dry, and refrigerate.