How to Dye Easter Eggs with Food Coloring

Easy Color Easter Eggs with Food Coloring

Every year my family and I color Easter eggs.  Instead of using prepacked egg coloring dyes such as Paas when making Easter eggs, I wanted to try regular food coloring in our egg dye.

Food coloring is much cheaper than buying egg dying kits (although they’re not exactly a huge investment either).

To be totally honest, I wanted to try this thing I saw on Pinterest featuring a McCormick’s Food Coloring dye chart using the Neon Food coloring pack. So, I bought the neon food coloring (and subsequently didn’t save any money by not buying the egg coloring kit).

I followed the recipes on the above chart exactly. I put the drops of food coloring in 3/4 cup of boiling water with a tablespoon of vinegar, as instructed.

As you can see, my results were not as stunning as McCormicks (not too bad, but I would not recommend this if you want really great looking eggs).

It was easy to mix up custom colors, as you’ll see below.  My kids are little, so they thought they were awesome. 😉

As you can see my color was not as uniform. I was disappointed with the “deep purple” color. I also double dipped to get the eggs to be more vibrant. I am not sure how McCormick got their eggs to have such uniform color, but hey, that might be a trade secret they are not willing to divulge!

To dye eggs with food coloring, this is what you will need:

INGREDIENTS:

Boiled Eggs
Food Coloring
Vinegar
Boiling Water
Cups
Spoon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Hard boil eggs (here’s how), let cool
2. Get a cup for each color you want to make
3. Add to each cup: 3/4 cup of boiling water and one tablespoon of vinegar
4. Now, add the food coloring. Add as much or as little as you want
5. Mix well
6. Add boiled eggs and soak until you get the desired color (leave in longer for darker colors)

IMPORTANT TIPS:

• Don’t use cold eggs!  The eggs absorb colors better at room temperature or warmer
• Use dye bath when warm. If it cools down the color won’t stick as well. Pop in the microwave for a minute if it gets cold.
• The first few eggs you dip will get a deeper color. After a few, the eggs start to lose vibrant color. Make another cup if you want darker color
• This method will work with any brand of food coloring.
• Adding vinegar is vital to make the color stick to the egg shells.
• If dying with shaving cream, soak in vinegar for a few minutes (up to 5?) before to ensure the color will stay

Here are my finished dyed Easter Eggs! Happy egg decorating!

To learn how to make these darling little Easter Egg Carton Chickens in our tutorial!