As I grew up, we always bought our white eggs from the store and used a PAAS Easter egg kit to make beautiful Easter creations. It’s not that my mom didn’t know how to dye eggs with food coloring; I just think my sister and I loved buying our cool egg kits so much that she didn’t deny us the pleasure.
Fast forward to today, and at Easter, my egg customers have a definite preference for the white eggs laid by my Brown Leghorn chickens. They see all the kits in the store and fall for the myth that white eggs dye so much prettier than other colors. Nothing, in my opinion, can be farther from the truth. In my family, we prefer to dye the brown and green eggs laid by the rest of my flock. I love the deep, rich tones that the brown and green eggs provide when they’re dyed. And frankly, we don’t need a kit from the store. We use the food dye from our pantry and find that it’s so versatile that we can make tons of interesting combinations.
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| Polka dot, rubber band and flower decorated eggs. |
Getting Started
For a plain dyed egg without anything fancy, you need to start with clean hard-boiled eggs. There are so many methods for hard-boiling eggs. I use my grandmother’s recipe. I start with cold eggs covered in cold water. I bring everything to a boil for 10 minutes and then let the eggs sit in the water until it’s cool.
Quick Tip: Save the water from your boiled eggs and use it to water your houseplants. They’ll love the extra nutrients in the water.
I’m a pro at this now, so I normally just eyeball my ingredients, but to be exact, you can use the recipe on the back of the food coloring box which calls for a half cup of hot tap water mixed with one teaspoon of vinegar. You add a teaspoon of food coloring, either liquid or gel form. But, for the gel type, you have to let it dissolve for about five minutes before submerging your egg. You can vary the amounts of coloring for your preference – smaller amounts of color give a lighter effect and mixing colors can give you a custom look.
Once your egg is submerged, the recipe box calls for it to remain in the color bath for about four minutes. This is not a hard and fast rule. Play around with this a little. You’ll find the longer the soaking time, the deeper the color. Once you’ve got a color you like, pull your eggs out of the color bath and let them dry on a rack.
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| Easter eggs dyed with food coloring. |
Polka Dot Eggs
For this, I like to use a two-step method. First I dye my eggs in a light color like pink, lime green or yellow. Then I apply round stickers (office supply stickers) randomly around the egg, making sure to firmly press the edges so they have completely adhered to the egg. Then I put my egg in a darker dye and let it soak for a few minutes. Once I remove the egg, I let it dry and then remove the stickers.Rubber Band Eggs
I like to use a two-color method here too, but it's not required. You could also start out with a white egg, giving you more contrast at the end. After dyeing my eggs first, I wrap my egg with thick rubber bands (like the kind you find on produce at the grocery store). Then I put my egg in a different color dye and remove it after a few minutes. After the egg dries, I gently remove the rubber bands and have a dramatic geometric striped egg!Flower Decorating
My kids love this one and it’s super easy. Just take an already-dyed egg, randomly glue flowers around the shell and decorate them as you’d like. I like to use school glue since it’s not toxic and for the picture, I used paper-type flowers from the scrapbooking section at my local craft store. You can also use silk flowers; really whatever you’ve got on hand. I then glued sequins on the flowers to give them a center, but many silk flowers come with a center. In the end, you’ve got an egg that’s almost too pretty to eat!
Most importantly, have fun with these methods and have a Happy Easter!
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