You’ll find out how easy and fun it is when you learn how to dye eggs with onion skins. Since the dyeing takes place at the same time and in the same pot as the boiling, it’s a great alternative to messy and time-consuming food color dyes.
And if you have eggs and onions on hand already, you won’t need to purchase a dye kit, either! All the color comes from the onion skins themselves.
Be sure to keep reading beyond the instructions. Once you master this tutorial, there are so many other ways to use food scraps as natural dye.
Dyeing eggs with onion skins
This is such a simple project. You just need a few items you likely already have on hand. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Yellow onion skins (the skin of one onion for every three eggs you want to dye).
- Raw, white-shelled eggs.
- A pot large enough to hold the eggs you want to dye in a single layer.
- Water, a pinch of salt and a dash of vinegar.
- Optionally, vegetable oil.
Put the onion skins in the bottom of the pot, then add the water, salt and vinegar. Gently place the eggs on top of the water-logged skins.
Bring the water to a boil and continue boiling (keep an eye on it so your pot doesn’t go dry!) for fifteen minutes. Remove the pot from heat and add cold water to help stop the boiling process.
When the contents of the pot have cooled, remove the eggs and gently pat them dry before storing them. To add shine, you can also rub them with vegetable oil.
The onion skins can be discarded (or added to your kitchen compost!).
The eggs will be a lovely, deep golden color and are great for Easter – or any time of year. If you enjoy hard-boiled eggs and do a lot of cooking with onions, why not dye your eggs on a regular basis to make your snacks more colorful?
Other Natural Food Coloring Options
Experiment with different color onions and different color eggs. You can’t get an ugly color. And onions aren’t the only form of natural dye for eggs.
- Red onion skins turn eggs a red to lavender shade.
- Leftover chopped red cabbage, using the above method, will turn eggs a blueish shade.
- Grape juice turns them purplish.
- Ground turmeric turns eggs a vibrant goldenrod yellow shade.
- Grated red beets turn them a vibrant deep red.
- Blueberries turn them (no surprise here) blue.
- Used coffee grounds or black walnut shells will turn them a nice shade of brown.
- Leftover carrot gratings turn them a pale orange.
- Used bags of Red Zinger tea turn them lavender.
- A touch of red wine that’s gone off for drinking will turn them bluish.
- The juice from a can of beets will turn them pink.
- A half teaspoon of alum added to the water will make colors more vibrant.
There’s really no end to leftover food bits you can try using in this method. Some bits don’t impart color as well as others. For example, red potato skins only give enough color to create a very light pink. But it’s still lovely.