How to Make Easter Egg Dye

Continuing with our week of Easter Basics… now that you know how to hard-boil eggs, we figured it would be fun to share how to make your own Easter Egg Dye. This DIY egg dye recipe will come in handy should you forget to buy one of those packets with the dye tablets (like I did last year), but actually I am so happy I forgot because it forced me to learn how to make my own Easter egg dye. It is surprisingly easy, and with homemade egg dye you can create fun, custom colors!

How to Make Easter Egg Dye with Basic Ingredients from the pantry
Colorful Easter Eggs made with Homemade Easter Egg Dye. All you need is 3 basic pantry ingredients to make DIY Easter Egg Dye.

You will need a separate glass container for each color of Easter egg dye that you want to make. Note that plastic or ceramic containers may be ruined by dye. We prefer wide-mouth mason jars because we have several of them handy and the glass is sturdy. It’s totally fine to adjust the recipe (cut in half or double) to suit the size of your container.

DIY Easter Egg Dye Recipe

  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 2 teaspoon white vinegar
  • 10-20 drops food coloring (see color mixing chart below)

how to make egg dye

Add the hot water and vinegar to each container. Drop in your food coloring and mix well. Place hard-boiled eggs in dye for 5 minutes or longer to achieve desired color vibrancy. Let dry.

More of a visual learner? Here’s a video I made showing how to make homemade Egg Dye:



custom color mixing chart for homemade Easter Egg Dye

Of course you can make Easter egg dye in just the straight colors that came in your food color set, but the fun really begins when you start mixing things together! You can begin by trying out some of our favorite color combinations below to or mix up your own custom blends.

Homemade Easter Egg Dye Recipe using basic ingredients from your pantry

Color mixing chart

Our family loves to use the Neon food coloring set for an added range of color options.

  • ORANGE = 17 yellow + 3 red
  • RASPBERRY = 14 red + 6 blue
  • PLUM = 10 red + 4 blue
  • PURPLE = 15 blue + 5 red
  • TEAL = 15 green + 5 blue
  • MINT = 12 green + 4 yellow + 2 blue
  • LIME = 15 yellow + 5 green

Here’s a handy color chart we found from McCormick:

How to Make Your own Easter Egg Dye -- it's easy! via @PagingSupermom

Don’t know how to Hard-Boil Eggs? We can help!

How to perfectly Hard-Boil Eggs recipe from PagingSupermom.com #eggs #easter #eggdecorating

Bettijo Bridges

Administrator at Paging Supermom
Bettijo is the founder and designer of Paging Supermom where she shares creative ideas for family fun. Known for practical and kid-friendly activities, free printables and holiday entertainment. Bettijo was a guest on the Martha Stewart Show and has frequently appeared on local TV. Her work has also been featured in national magazines including Real Simple, O, Redbook, Parents, Family Circle, and Health. She enjoys art, retro-modern design, photography and making new things. Mom of 4 kids.

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7 thoughts on “How to Make Easter Egg Dye”

  1. Oh thank goodness! We went out of town for Easter, and my 5-year-old has NOT forgotten that he didn’t get to color Easter eggs. Off to get the required ingredients a week late! THANKS!!

    Reply
  2. Good idea ! And how to make the dots and lines on it ? I like them exacly how they look ,Happy Easter and thank you!

    Reply
    • There are lots of way to add patterns — our favorite technique is to use adhesive vinyl (like the kind used in Cricut or Silhouette machines) then cut to your desired shape. Stick these on to act as a resist. There is also the white crayon trick! Oh and try rubber bands — lots of fun there!

      Reply
    • Great Question! I have never tried it with apple cider vinegar, but I would expect it would work out just as well. I think we use the white vinegar so it won’t mess with the look of the colors, but I’m guessing the results would be pretty similar. I’d love to hear how it turns out?!

      Reply
  3. How weird! So sorry to hear about that trouble. Not sure what happened with your batch. We’ve done this in my family for years and never had that problem. We do egg fights every Easter morning so we handle the eggs a lot and never had the dye come off. Hmmm… wish I could help.

    Reply

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