How to Dye Easter Eggs With Dried Onion Skins

Looking for a beautiful and natural way to dye Easter eggs? Forget the traditional Easter egg dye kits and give onion skins a try. Surprisingly, dried yellow onion skins produce a deep crimson red color when heated with water and vinegar.

Trust me, this image was not altered. The egg color is truly this deep crimson red AND the eggs will not taste like onion nor will the crimson red color migrate through to the egg white.

1) Dried yellow onion skins (from 10 - 15 onions).

2) One dozen white eggs

3) White Vinegar

TIP 1: At your local grocery store, ask if you can rummage through the onion bin for the dried skins to save yourself from buying so many onions. Since they frequently clean and dispose of these skins I even went so far as to ask if they would save them for me . . . . and they did !!

TIP 2: I used brown eggs once but they didn't come out that deep crimson red color I was looking for. The color was more brown

1) Peel away the dry skins from the onions

2) In a stainless saucepan, place dried skins from 10 to 15 yellow onions and 3 tablespoons of white vinegar in 5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes

TIP: If you have dried red onion skins, add them too

3) Remove onion skins

4) Bring water back to a boil

5) Place room-temperature eggs in the boiling water with a slotted spoon and boil for 17 - 20 minutes

6) Do not cook for more than 20 minutes. If, after 20 minutes, the eggs are not a deep enough color, remove pot from heat, cool to room temperature, then place in refrigerator until desired color is reached. This could take overnight

7) Remove beautifully colored eggs and dry with a clean towel

8) With cool eggs, place a dab of lard (Crisco) on the eggs and polish with a paper towel

9) Refrigerate until ready to display