I'm Marci! Join me here on TIDBITS for healthy Instant Pot recipes and get 10 free recipes from my cookbook, Master the Electric Pressure CookerLooking for a natural way to dye eggs for Easter! LOOK NO FURTHER! This Instant Pot Pressure Cooker method for making egg dye is incredibly fast and easy as can be! Your family will love seeing how food at the grocery store can make beautifully colored eggs!
This here recipe/how-to is next level for sure. 
You know that smile you get on your face when you watch someones baby coo and giggle? Do you ever just look at your pressure cooker and get that same grin? Yeah, me neither, because that would be totally weird. Buuuuuuutt, if I did, it would be for this recipe. Natural Easter Egg Dye in the Pressure Cooker!
My kids were in awe, I was happy dancing, and my husband was smirking (towards my direction). Homemade, bright, beautiful color dye in minutes in the pressure cooker. That, for me, is next level.
And my kids LOVED this! They helped me plop our Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs into the mason jars and every hour or so they would check to see what color they had become. Okay, maybe it was every 2 minutes that they wanted to check, but I LET them check every hour until they were the color they wanted them to be.
They couldn't get over the fact that I had dyed Easter eggs with food and I'm gonna go ahead and say it was even more fun then the artificial tablets in a box we've used in years past. And actually, except for the cabbage dye, they didn't even smell as bad either (the vinegar smell from the store-bought artificial dye kits still haunts me).
Whether you want to make your own Natural Easter Egg Dye for the natural aspect or just for the fun of it, this is the only way to go! If you do this on the stove top, it takes at least 40 minutes of boiling it down to get this kind of color intensity. Plus after 40 minutes of boiling cabbage and onion peels, whoa mama, your house is gonna reek. I even put the pressure cooker outside to make these which meant my house still smelled like lavender vanilla at the end of the day.
I will say I had a few flops while I was experimenting. I tried to use spinach and tea bags but they all ended up barely lending any color to the egg. If you have experience with this and have other colors that have worked, hook me up! I will be using this method for years to come!
Until next year when I experiment again, here are the foods I used and the colors I achieved. Note: The eggs pictured here were left in the liquid for anywhere from an hour to overnight so that is why the shades of color differ.
Purple Cabbage = Blue (my personal favorite)
Beets = Pink
Yellow Onion Skin = Orange
Ground Turmeric = Yellow
(Note: Next time I plan on hunting down fresh turmeric since the powder in the bottom of the jar made them dye unevenly)
Red Onion Skin = Red (more of a rusty red)
And there you have it! An adorable basket full of Hard Boiled Eggs of all different shades and with just a touch of character with each one. In case I've failed to say it less than 50 times today, I REALLY, REALLY LOVE THIS RECIPE AND YOU REALLY, REALLY MUST TRY IT! Your kids will love this activity, I guarantee it!
Happy Easter! Unless you're reading this post at a different time of year, in which case, this will still be the funnest family project of the year!
Don't miss out on this glorious White Chocolate Lemon Bar Cheesecake recipe! Put in on your Easter menu ASAP.
Tools used to Make Natural Easter Egg Dye in the Instant Pot Pressure Cooker
Quart Size Wide Mouth Mason Jars
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How to Make Natural Easter Egg Dye in the Pressure Cooker
Quick and easy, all natural Easter Egg Dye made in the pressure cooker!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 2 cups of dye liquid 1x
- Category: Easter
- Method: Pressure Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
For each Homemade Dye
- 2 cups water
- dyeing agent (listed below)
- 2 tablespoon vinegar
Dyeing Agents
Blue Eggs
- 2 cups chopped purple cabbage
Pink Eggs
- 2 cups chopped, peeled beets (canned beets may work as well)
Orange Eggs
- 2 cups yellow onion peel (I diced up the rest of the actual onion and froze it for another day)
Yellow Eggs
- 2 tablespoons ground turmeric
Red Eggs
- 2 cups red onion peel
Instructions
Directions are for each individual dye. If making more than one color, rinse the pot thoroughly between each batch to prevent mixing colors
- Pour 2 cups of water into the pressure cooker pot and add desired dyeing agent. Secure the lid and turn pressure release knob to a sealed position. Cook at high pressure for 10 minutes.
- When cooking is complete, use a quick release.
- Carefully pour through a strainer into a larger bowl and discard dyeing agent. Pour colored water into a quart size wide mouth mason jar and add 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Top with a lid and place in fridge. Let it chill 4 hours or overnight before placing hard boiled eggs in the jar to dye.
- Repeat with the other dyeing agents to create more colors
- Dye will keep in the fridge for at least 1 week.
To dye hard boiled eggs
Note: Each jar will fit 4-5 eggs at a time. The eggs will have white spots where they touch each other or the jar so lightly rotate the jar a few times while they are in the jar for more even coloring.
- Using a slotted spoon, gently lower eggs into the mason jar. Allow the eggs to sit in the dye for at least an hour or overnight, depending on how dark you want them.
- When they have achieved the color you want, use a slotted spoon to gently lift them from the jar. While they are wet the color will come off if you rub on it too hard. Place on a cooling rack in the fridge to dry completely. This will set the dye so it won't rub off. Once dry, store in a egg carton or other sealed container.
- Repeat with more eggs if desired.
Notes
- Naturally dyed eggs have more of a matte finish. Rub a little coconut oil on them to give them a shine if desired.
- I tried an egg from each dye and didn't notice any change in taste to the egg. The eggs colored with beets did turn a little pink around the white.
- Naturally colored eggs will fade after a few days.
Keywords: Instant Pot, Pressure Cooker, Easter eggs, Easter egg dye
Recipes adapted from The Kitchn and Mommypotamus
Holy cow, this is genius! I am a throwback from my grandparents’ era and have often dyed eggs with vegetables, but yes, it was a major trade-off in deciding whether to have your house reek of various root vegetables for days or simply buy the little pellets from the store. I never liked using those artificial dyes, so this will be a fabulous project for us to do with our grandbabies this weekend. Thanks much, Marci!
Karen, That’s hilarious! My pot went outside to do this and I was so glad because when I let the pressure out for the cabbage, whoa, it was smelly, but my house stayed smelling beautiful. This recipe came about because of you so thanks for feeding my inspiration!
I am so glad my annoying questions ended up birthing something helpful! I love the Instant pot from saving my house from nefarious odors–your cabbage reminds me of the time I cooked orange roughy and the stench stuck around for a very long time–nothing got rid of that smell except leaving every window open for days–too bad it was January in WI!
Oh Marci! Why didn’t this exist when my children were young? (The Instant Pot method). Guess I’ll have to file this away for grandchildren someday or maybe I just need to play and make me some colored hard boiled eggs. 😉
Now the cheesecake? That I can do for my grown kids and they won’t laugh at me. Lol.
Cecilia, Grandskids would go crazy for this idea! It really was so fun. And that lemon cheesecake will have every grown up singing your praises!
What a great Idea!! Do you know if the dye that is created could be used on fabrics; and if so, will it remain permanently in the fabric?
Pat, I can’t say that I’ve tried that, but I am really curious. My daughter wanted to make a doll pillow case and I might let the material sit in it overnight, wash it, and see what happens. Let me know if you try it!