How to Dye Easter Eggs Naturally

Set a head of red cabbage on a cutting board and slice it into rough strips. The more cut edges you make, the more colour the water can pull out, so do not leave it in big chunks. Stems and outer leaves go in too. Nothing here needs to look neat. Red cabbage stains wood and hands a little, so rinse the board soon after.

Scrape the chopped cabbage into a large stock pot. Fill it with water until the cabbage is covered, plus enough depth for your eggs to sit under the surface later. A big pot gives the eggs room so they do not knock together. This pot makes the blue dye, even though the water looks purple now.

Put a couple of big handfuls of red onion skins in a saucepan and cover them with water. Do the same with the yellow onion skins in a second saucepan. Keep the two kinds apart, because red skins give a deep plum and yellow skins give a rusty orange red. Onion skins are strong, so you need far less of them than cabbage.

Set all three pots on the stove. Add a splash of white vinegar to each one, about 2 tablespoons. The vinegar evens out the water so the dye takes to the shell more evenly. Stir it in with a spoon. Then turn the heat up and bring each pot to a boil.

Once the pots boil, turn the heat down and let them simmer for about 30 minutes. The water darkens as the colour leaves the plants. The cabbage pot turns a deep purple and the onion pots go dark red and amber. If you want smooth, even colour on the eggs, strain out the plant bits now. Leave them in for a speckled look.

Lower the eggs into the dye one at a time on a slotted spoon. Spread them across the three pots. In the video they go in raw and cook in the dye for 10 minutes, which hard-boils them. If you prefer, use eggs you hard-boiled already and simmer them in the dye for the same time. Keep the heat at a gentle simmer so they do not crack.

After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and let the pots cool for a while. Then fish the eggs out into a bowl. The onion eggs come out a strong red and the cabbage eggs a pale lilac. Do not worry if the cabbage eggs look light. As they dry and the colour reacts with the air, they turn more blue.

For deeper colour, put each batch of eggs in its own glass jar and pour dye from the matching pot over them until they are covered. Close the lids, write the dye on each lid and set the jars in the fridge. Overnight is good. The creator left hers two days, and the cabbage eggs changed the most, from lilac to a deep blue.

Take the jars out of the fridge and pour each one through a mesh strainer over the sink. The dye goes down the drain and the eggs stay in the strainer. Do one colour at a time so you can keep the batches apart. Rinse the cabbage dye off quickly, as it can stain a light sink or counter.

Lay the eggs out on paper towels or an old cloth, each colour in its own group. Let them dry completely before you stack them in a bowl. Set them in good daylight and you will see the speckles and shading that make plant-dyed eggs special. Keep them in the fridge if anyone will eat them.