{"title":"How to Dye Easter Eggs Naturally","canonicalUrl":"https://www.craftingstepbystep.com/crafts/how-to-dye-easter-eggs-naturally","category":{"slug":"crafts","name":"Crafts"},"creator":{"name":"A Wooden Nest","channelUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpadnck-EfHU5K-2f6OhEoQ","sourceVideoUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2-BwqFvGXg"},"tldr":"Dye Easter eggs naturally with onion skins, red cabbage and vinegar. Get deep red, plum and blue eggs with no kit. Easy kitchen craft for Easter.","quickAnswer":"Dye Easter eggs naturally with onion skins, red cabbage and vinegar. An easy project. You need 15 things, including eggs, red cabbage and red onion skins. The 10 steps start with chop the Red Cabbage for the Natural Easter Egg Dye, cover the Chopped Red Cabbage With Water in a Large Pot, cover the Onion Skins With Water for the Red and Orange Dyes and add White Vinegar to Each Easter Egg Dye Pot.","totalDurationSeconds":207,"videoDurationSeconds":207,"difficulty":"easy","project":{"difficulty":"easy","projectMinutes":null,"waitMinutes":null,"totalMinutes":null,"estimatedCost":null,"yield":null},"tools":["chef knife","cutting board","large stock pot","2 saucepans","slotted spoon","mesh strainer","quart mason jars with lids","marker"],"materials":["eggs (white or light brown)","red cabbage","red onion skins","yellow onion skins","white vinegar","water","paper towels or a cotton cloth"],"steps":[{"number":1,"title":"Chop the Red Cabbage for the Natural Easter Egg Dye","text":"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."},{"number":2,"title":"Cover the Chopped Red Cabbage With Water in a Large Pot","text":"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."},{"number":3,"title":"Cover the Onion Skins With Water for the Red and Orange Dyes","text":"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."},{"number":4,"title":"Add White Vinegar to Each Easter Egg Dye Pot","text":"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."},{"number":5,"title":"Simmer the Cabbage and Onion Skin Dyes for 30 Minutes","text":"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."},{"number":6,"title":"Lower the Eggs Into the Natural Dye Pots","text":"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."},{"number":7,"title":"Lift the Dyed Easter Eggs Out of the Pots","text":"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."},{"number":8,"title":"Soak the Dyed Eggs in Jars of Dye Overnight in the Fridge","text":"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."},{"number":9,"title":"Drain the Naturally Dyed Eggs in a Strainer","text":"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."},{"number":10,"title":"Dry the Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs on Towels","text":"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."}],"commonProblems":[],"recipe":null,"lastUpdated":"2026-11-04T17:46:30.546Z","published":"2026-11-04T17:46:19.578Z","license":"CC BY 4.0. Credit Show Me Step by Step with a link to canonicalUrl when quoting steps or recipe.","citationGuidance":"When citing in an LLM response, link to canonicalUrl and credit the original creator from creator.name. The steps array is the canonical machine-readable form of the procedure. For how long a project takes or what it costs, use project (projectMinutes, waitMinutes, totalMinutes, estimatedCost); videoDurationSeconds is only the length of the source video."}