5 Ways To Naturally Dye Brown Eggs For Easter

Simple things are beautiful.
One of my favorite things about brown eggs, is how pretty they are. I think if I could get away with it, I would decorate my house with baskets of brown eggs. But, since I can't I'm just happy that I get to look them every day.

I've heard people say, "farm eggs are hard to peel" and "yah, but you can't really dye a brown egg". Well, farm eggs can be easy to peel, depending on how you prepare them and brown eggs make the prettiest colors when they're dyed, so I thought I would give you a couple of fun ideas to try.

First, the peeling...

So, when I boil my eggs, I wait till the water is boiling, then I carefully place the eggs in. I boil for 12 minutes, then immediately dump the hot water and cover them in cold water. As soon as that warms up, I dump it and cover in cold water again. I do this 2 or 3 times until the water remains cold.

I let them sit until the eggs are completely cooled off and they peel like a dream!

5 ways to dye your eggs naturally...

Have you ever been so busy that when you decided to dye eggs with the kids, you realized- Oops, you didn't even pick up a dye kit. Now what are you going to do? Or maybe your like me and you just love experimenting in the kitchen. Well, there are some fun options for natural dyes using plants that you probably have on hand, and I'll give you a quick overview here:

1)Use a plant based coloring kit for eggs- We used this kit for our eggs and it worked great. The colors are deep and turned out really nice. I have also used this brand of plant based dyes for frostings and it works beautifully. (And, in case you're wondering, it doesn't add flavor to your baked goods or frostings)

2) Purple cabbage for blue dye- (this will color in shades of blue similar to the above picture). Chop a purple cabbage (about 1 pound). Combine 1 quart of water, 1 Tablespoon Vinegar and 1 Tablespoon of Salt. Add cabbage and bring to a boil. Cover and Simmer for 30 minutes. Strain and use the liquid for dying your eggs.

​3) Beets for Red - (this will color your eggs in shades similar to the dark reddish purple and light rose, above.) Take 1 to 2 beets and chop. Combine 1 quart of water, 1 Tablespoon Vinegar and 1 Tablespoon of Salt. Add beets and bring to a boil. Cover and Simmer for 30 minutes. Strain and use the liquid for dying your eggs. You can also use your prepared beet kvaas to dye your eggs - no prep needed, just soak in the kvaas until it reaches the desired color.

​4) Turmeric - (this dye will color eggs in shades of yellow -see above photo) Combine 1 quart of water, 1 Tablespoon Vinegar and 1 Tablespoon of Salt. Add 6 tablespoons of turmeric powder and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer until turmeric dissolves.

5) Coffee- I know, they're already brown, but add this to your dye collection to get an even deeper shade of brown. Grind your coffee to a fine powder and combine 5 Tablespoons with a quart of water, 1 Tablespoon of vinegar and 1 Tablespoon of salt. Boil for 5 minutes and strain.

There are so many other options, you could try, so if you don't have something on hand, test what's in your cupboard...
Blackberries, Elderberries, Raddishes, and Yellow Onion Skins also make great colors. Any other ideas? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.

Happy Easter from the 7U Ranch!

-Raini
(Seth, Raini, Liam, Charise and Rhian Allen)