Here’s a project for folks who like stuff cheap and easy.
It’s not that I have anything against store-bought egg dye kits, it’s just that I came across some dye recipes and they were crazy easy and we already had almost everything to do it.
Here’s what we used:
- Shredded beets (about a cup)
- Purple cabbage (about half a head)
- Ground Turmeric (two tablespoons)
- Red Onion Skins (some)
- Yellow Onion Skins (also, some)
One at a time, we boiled the items in about a quart or so of water. Once they were boiling, we covered them and let them simmer for about 20 minutes, until the color was really vibrant.
Each color was strained through cheesecloth and cooled.
The eggs were hard-boiled and then cooled to room temperature.
Because some of the colors promised different results on white eggs vs. brown eggs, we tried both in these cases.
The eggs were fully submerged in the dye and then placed into the refrigerator to chill until the color was bright.
This ended up taking about an hour and a half or so (but I’m impatient and they probably should have been left longer for better results).
In the end, we got colors very close to the promised outcomes.
More than anything, it was really nice to do this from scratch.
I doubt we’ll be buying store kits again anytime soon.
