How to Dye Easter Eggs with Food Coloring

Want to know how to dye Easter eggs with food coloring? Try this tried and true method in the slow cooker for bright colors with very little effort and even less mess! Dyeing Easter eggs is one of the best Easter traditions, except when the food dye ends up on your clothes more than the eggs. This recipe is all about getting those vibrant colors without the mess! This fun simple dyeing process is great for the whole family no matter what age!

bowl with eggs dyed with food coloring in various colors

I love Easter and all of the Easter traditions we do each year. Truly. Easter egg hunts, our egg games Olympics, and even doing an Easter scavenger hunt with my kids – I love it.

The one Easter tradition that I don’t love is dyeing Easter eggs. And mostly I just don’t love the mess.

Thankfully my kids don’t care that much either. It’s a fun activity if I get it setup but if not, no big deal.

So this year I thought it’d be fun to dye Easter eggs with food coloring in my slow cooker (aka crock pot) instead of doing them by hand. Regular food coloring does a great job of dyeing the eggs without all the extra stuff that comes in the store-bought kit you buy at the grocery store.

This may not be one of the best ways to dye eggs if you’re looking for Easter activities for your family (try these shaving cream eggs or these decoupage eggs instead), but it’s sure a a great way to get colored Easter eggs without a lot of work!

Also, this hard boils the eggs at the same time so that’s awesome. Knocking out two things with one simple tutorial!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Easy – get beautiful eggs without the excess mess and few ingredients. This option is perfect for anyone who wants festive hard-boiled eggs without the hassle of hand-dyeing each egg. A few simple steps and you’ve got four different shades of Easter eggs.
Customizable – with so many different colors of food coloring you can make your eggs your desired color. Use neon food coloring for bright eggs or pastel food coloring for a light color. You can also use a white crayon and draw designs on the eggs.
Food safe – my kids really enjoy eating hard boiled eggs but I am always nervous to let them when I see the dye on the egg. This is great because I know exactly what is in the dye and that they are safe to eat. No more throwing away red eggs!

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

Eggs – you want raw eggs to start. They will cook for several hours and be colorful hard boil eggs at the end of it! If you are wanting muted colors, I suggest using brown eggs instead of white eggs!
Food coloring – as mentioned above you can use any regular food coloring for this, both gel food coloring and liquid food coloring work. I found that the brighter the dye, the richer color will be at the end. I like vibrant colors for best results!
Foil – this is used to separate your different food coloring eggs so you don’t end up with a bunch of brown eggs at the end. I would stick to heavy duty so you don’t have to use more than you need to make the barriers.
Slow cooker liners – these bags are what hold the cups of dye in place with the eggs so you can do multiple colors. If you are wanting just one color you can skip these!

how to dye eggs with food coloring

Let me start by saying that the preparation for this is a little tedious but the actual process of cooking and dyeing the eggs is so easy that it’s totally worth it!

Tip!

While this easy tutorial is for cooking and dyeing Easter eggs in the slow cooker with food coloring, you can easily use food coloring mixed with water to dye already hard-boiled Easter eggs as well! Just follow the same instructions except you’ll put each different color and water in a bowl instead of sections of a slow cooker. And it doesn’t need to be boiling since the eggs are already hard boiled!

1 – Prep the Slow Cooker

Start by dividing your slow cooker into four sections. To do this, fold pieces of aluminum foil into squares that will fit into the slow cooker so they look like dividers. This will give you four different sections for four different colors of eggs.

slow cooker with pieces of aluminum foil separating it

Add a slow cooker liner to each section of the slow cooker. It’s easiest to do this if you roll down the sides of each of the crockpot liners so everything fits nicely into the bowl.

This takes some time but this will keep any food coloring from leaking onto the other eggs in the other sections.

slow cooker with multiple liners put in it

2 – Add the Ingredients

Now that the slow cooker is prepared, add four eggs to each section. If you have a larger slow cooker, you can add more eggs if you would like, but I’ve found that four is a pretty good number for a normal sized slow cooker or crockpot.

slow cooker with 16 hard boiled eggs inside

Next, add as much food coloring in each section as you’d like. The more drops you add will give you a darker color, less drops will give you more pastel looking colors.

If you want the colors to be even more muted, you can use brown eggs instead of white like I mentioned in the post above.

Then add 3-4 cups of water into each section or until the eggs are covered. It is important the eggs are covered in water so that they cook through completely.

The separated sections will help keep the colored water (and colored eggs) to their own individual section.

3 – Cook and Dye the Eggs

Turn the slow cooker on low setting and cook for 4-6 hours depending how well done you like your eggs. The eggs will dye while they cook so they’re both dyed and hard boiled once you’re done.

4 – Remove and Serve the Eggs

Once the time is up, prepare a plate or tray by lining them with a paper towel (or multiple paper towels if it’s a big tray). Then take the eggs out of their slow cooker dye bath using a slotted spoon and place eggs onto the prepared tray to dry and cool completely.

Once the eggs are cooled to room temperature and the coloring is dry, you can either put them in the fridge or enjoy them immediately! Or what else you do with dyed hard-boiled eggs.

bowl of dyed eggs colored in a slow cooker

Expert Tips

Add as many eggs as you reasonably can in each section if you want more eggs, just make sure they aren’t too tight or they may end up cracking.

Use a larger slow cooker split into 6-8 sections if you want even more colors! Just make sure you use one slow cooker liner per section.

Use the hard-boiled eggs as a pretty centerpiece on a table that people can eat or take home and enjoy later!

Store cooked eggs in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Recipe FAQs

Can you dye eggs in the Instant Pot?

If your Instant Pot has a slow cooker function, then you can totally do this same thing. It’s a little more challenging because most Instant Pots are actually round, rather than oblong, but still the same idea!

What can you do with dyed eggs?

There are a lot of things you can do with dyed eggs. You can eat them of course, hide them in Easter egg hunts (just remember where you hid them), use them as decorations for Easter brunch or dinner, or just dye them as one of the most fun Easter activities!

Do dyed Easter eggs need to be refrigerated?

Dyed eggs should be refrigerated since they’re still hard-boiled eggs, dye or no dye. They can be out for a few hours with no problems but put any leftovers back into the fridge!

More Easy Easter Crafts

If you want some more simple Easter crafts and activities to do after you dye eggs, these are some of our favorite ways to have fun on Easter morning!

Easter egg hunt clues – hide Easter eggs all over in the locations on these Easter riddles then have kiddos (or adults) see who find the surprises left by the Easter bunny!
Easter coloring pages – coloring is a simple way but you’ll be amazed how kids will spend just a little extra time making Easter pictures a little prettier!
Tissue paper butterflies – all you need are some simple supplies from the Dollar Tree (or another craft store) to make this cute Easter themed craft!
Decoupage Easter eggs – use colorful Easter napkins and these simple tips to create the prettiest eggs ever!
Encanto Easter baskets – if you have kiddos that are fans of the show, let them help you make these fun DIY baskets! And then fill them with ideas from this huge list of Easter basket ideas for toddlers!

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