After last year’s Natural Disaster with coloring Easter eggs, I decided to really research natural dyes (as well as buy a back-up kit just in case). I found an excellent and easy (two important criteria for me) tutorial here at Serious Eats.
I always seem to have purple cabbage in the house, so that was the natural choice.
We boiled that cabbage up with a bit of vinegar and salt.
*Warning: if you try this at home, you will have a home filled with the scent of boiled cabbage. We did it with the windows open and lit some fragrant candles to help.
As an experiment of sorts, we did some of the eggs this way and then used a store-bought kit to do the others. We wanted to compare the results.
This is what we found:
Store-bought kit eggs
Cabbage eggs
The store-bought kit resulted in bright and colorful eggs. But the Cabbage ones are just as beautiful! The color is rich and vibrant and resembles the color of a Robbin’s egg. It really worked so well!
I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if I didn’t know which was which!
My husband and I feel so much better letting our kids eat the ones dyed with cabbage! Although we all think they are so pretty, we may not eat them.
Homemade seems to have won this round. Aside from the pungent odor (a small price to pay), making the dye from cabbage was just as beautiful and not too much harder to do. Plus, I know exactly what is in it!
I think next year we will try some of the other natural ways of dyeing eggs, such as using beets, onion skins, and turmeric. This may be a start of a new tradition.
I love that!
*Those beautiful ceramic bowls were made by our brother-in-law, Mike Cone. Aren’t they fantastic?
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What are some of your new traditions?
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Perfectly lovely~ and so great you found natural dyes. You blog makeover is terrific too! Congrats!
Thank so much Jessie! I am glad you like it. Still some tweaking left to do, but overall I like it too:)
Gorgeous looking eggs!! Dying eggs growing up, my sisters would always do a myriad a colors on theirs while I kept it simple and lovely with just teal.
Teal seems to be the best! I love that color too.
I love the color of the homemade dye, so vibrant and deep. It just oozes ‘natural’!
Great job- I love blue eggs!!
That is amazing. I would have no idea that cabbage would work to make that luscious blue! So when the economy totally collapses and we’re all destitute, we can still have beautiful Easter eggs.
(Actually, I would like the cabbage ones so much better just beCAUSE we could make them without a kit!) Clever. 
YES Cranberry Morning! YES.
The cabbage eggs are beautiful! I’m inspired to try this on my own.
The cabbage ones are much nicer I think. Absolutely perfect for the blue theme.
Erika B
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