For all of my life, our family has dyed Easter eggs using those packets for sale at the Greek specialty store. Nothing wrong with those packets but curiousity drove me to try dying my Easter eggs using natural ingredients and I must say, the result was a surprising success!
I tried making blue and red eggs using purple cabbage, red onion skins and yellow onion skins. The purple cabbage does indeed give you a wonderful looking blue/aqua blue coloured egg but the red onion skins? They resulted in a coffee coloured egg…not too appealing.
The darling in this experiment were the red eggs, made so by using the skins of yellow onions. Not sure what the science is but it works! Results may vary depending on how many onion skins you use or for how long you reduce the dye but I am very happy!
Another interesting side note is that the red eggs that are naturally dyed do not bleed when you bake them with your tsoureki. Something else to consider!
Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs
12 room temperature eggs
For Red Eggs
the skins of approx. 20 medium yellow skinned onions
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
5 cups of water
For Blue Eggs
5 cups of finely chopped purple cabbage
5 cups of water
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
- Add your onion skins into a pot along with the vinegar and pour enough water to cover by over an inch. Bring up to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Take off the heat and allow to cool to warm.
- Remove the purple cabbage or onions skins and place the eggs gently in the respective pot. Bring back to boil and simmer for 5 minutes then take off the heat.
- Allow the eggs to cool in the dye then transfer to your fridge to set overnight.
- Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and allow to air-dry (about 45 minutes). Dab a white paper towel into some vegetable oil and polish then place in the egg carton and store in the fridge until needed.
NOTE: Want to make some other coloured eggs?
- use brown eggs with purple cabbage to get green eggs
- use brown eggs with yellow onions to get rusty red eggs
- shredded beets with white eggs to get pink eggs
- shredded beets with brown eggs to get maroon brown
(same water to vinegar to vegetable matter ratio)
- 2 Tbsp. of tumeric per cup of water for yellow eggs
NOTE: I tried boiling the eggs then adding to dye and then boiling the eggs in the dye. The latter works better as the eggs retain their colour whereas when you boil them first, the dye can still rub off.
12 Responses
Wow, very interesting that you dye eggs without hard-boiling them first. But these are the most beautiful colored eggs I’ve ever seen and I can’t wait to try them!
It’s a tradition to have dyed red eggs on the Greek Easter table! Each year, we make a big bath, but we usually use chemical-based food coloring. Your red eggs are natural, beautiful, and incredibly vibrant.
Could you please tell us how many eggs you can dye with this quantity of water?
“Eatwell”, depending on the pot, likely 6 eggs at a time and you could repeat the process a couple of times or double the recipe per dozen.
My mama used beets, to color eggs. Thank you. Want to buy your book.
Thanks for you note, Lida. There’s a tab on my site where you can get more info on buying my cookbooks.
I’m curious if the cabbage or onion flavour seaps into the egg? Also, in the video you had a ratio of 1 cup onion/cabbage to 4 cups of water but in the recipe it’s 1:1; which is correct? Thanks!
Go with what’s written in my recipe.
And do the flavours of the onion or cabbage get into the eggs?
Anna, do I say in the recipe that they taste like the vegetables?
Thank you for posting this! I did these last night and was worried that the blue wasn’t going to turn out. They were still nearly white when I put them in the fridge. Today, they are perfect! The reds are not really red, more of a burnt orange, but they are beautiful!
I look forward to exploring your site.
Happy Easter!
Maria, glad you liked the eggs…isn’t it amazing how these vegetables can naturally dye eggs? Kali Anastasi.