How To Dye Brown Eggs For Easter - The Ultimate Guide
If you love buying and using brown eggs, but aren’t quite sure how to dye them different colors for Easter, this guide is for you! With step by step photos and detailed instructions, you’ll learn the easy way to dye brown eggs into deep, darker colors, and lighter more pastel colors without having white-shelled eggs on hand.
How To Dye Brown Eggs For Easter - The Ultimate Guide
Dyeing eggs is a fun tradition that not only brings beautiful color and whimsy to an Easter tablescape, it’s a great activity to do with kids.
It can be easy to get white eggs to transform into many colors, but brown eggs can be just as beautiful.
Start with hardboiled eggs
The first step in dyeing eggs for Easter is to hard boil your eggs. There are many ways to hard boil eggs, but this is a fool-proof, simple way to do it that will result in less cracked shells.
Place your eggs in a single layer in a pot. Cover the eggs at least 1 inch above with cold water.
Bring the water to a boil, then turn off the heat and add a lid to cover the eggs. Leave the eggs in the hot water for 15 minutes for large eggs. Leave medium sized eggs for 12 minutes, and extra large eggs for 18 minutes.
Place the hard boiled eggs in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Now you have eggs ready to dye!
What you need to dye brown easter eggs
-
Brown hard boiled eggs
-
Heat proof bowls, cups or jars large enough to submerge the eggs under the water
-
Food coloring (gel or liquid)
-
Distilled vinegar
-
Boiling water
-
Spoon or tongs
-
Wire rack
How to dye brown shelled eggs into deep dark colors
-
In small bowls, cups or jars that are heatproof, add 1 cup of boiling water, 2 teaspoons of distilled vinegar, and 15-20 drops of food coloring. If you are using gel, add about ¼-½ tsp of the gel food coloring. Mix well. The cups should be quite a deep color - this will ensure that your eggs take on a good amount of color too.
-
Carefully lower your egg into the prepared water/food color bath and leave it in for 15-45 minutes. The longer you leave them in, the more color they will take on.
-
Check the egg for color and if they are to your liking, remove the egg with a spoon or tongs. Place on a wire rack with a cloth or paper towel below it to catch any colored water drippings.
How to dye brown eggs into lighter pastel colors
If you are looking for a lighter color pastel Easter egg, you’ll want to try this vinegar trick to naturally lighten your brown eggs before dying them!
-
After you hard boil the eggs, place them in a large bowl and cover the eggs with distilled vinegar. Allow the eggs to sit for 15-30 minutes in the vinegar.
-
Remove the eggs, give them a quick rinse under water and wipe them with a clean dishcloth to remove the brown coloring from the shells. This is a natural way to lighten the brown eggs before dyeing them and will result in more pastel colors.
-
Follow the instructions above for how to dye your lightened brown-shelled eggs!
How to store
Eggs are perishable, so they will need to be stored in the fridge once you are done dyeing hard boiled eggs.
In general, they should not be left out at room temperature for more than 2 hours.
Once stored in the fridge in an airtight container, they will last for up to 7 days.
Tips for success
Don’t overfill the jars - You want to make sure you leave enough space when you add water to your jars so that when you add the eggs, it does not overflow.
Mix to create color - If you’re working with just primary colors of food coloring, mix yellow and red together to get orange, blue and red together to get purple, yellow and blue to get green. You can create a lot of different color variations when starting with red, blue and yellow.
This method for dyeing brown-shelled eggs will leave you with bright and colorful, or lighter more pastel colored Easter eggs. Try both methods and experiment with different colors and how long you let the eggs sit in the dye. Have fun with it and share your colorful brown Easter eggs on Instagram by tagging us @chinovalleyranchers!