It's time to dye eggs. But forget the coloring that comes packaged. Let's reach for food to dye Easter eggs, from onion skins or beets to red cabbage leaves, black tea and red wine.
Spices work well for coloring eggs — turmeric, curry and cumin, in particular — as does frozen or canned fruit (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries) for intense colors.
Keep in mind that natural dyes take longer to work and their color may be lighter than the instant colors that come in a box.
When you use packaged colors, hard-cooked eggs are dipped into the prepared dye and you can do it that way with homemade dye, too. But another method when you dye eggs with foods (whether scraps or liquid), is to cook the eggs in the dye as it brews. When using canned fruit, though, start with a cooked egg and drop it in the mixture. Also, if using beverages to dye your eggs, there's no need to water down the liquid. For a sheen on the eggs, rub them with vegetable oil.
Natural dyes for eggs
You will need a significant amount of food scraps to create many of the dyes. For spices, use 2 tablespoons or more per 4 to 6 cups of water. For solid food, use 4 cups or more of chopped up ingredients (beets, red cabbage, onion skins and the like).
Pink/red: fresh beets, pickled beet juice, cranberries, frozen raspberries, red wine, red onion skins
Tan: yellow onion skins, green tea
Deep yellow: ground turmeric, curry powder, ground cumin
