Yes, I dyed these eggs with kombucha & onion skins

Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

With Easter only days away, I was elated to discover this new use for my kombucha starter tea. If you don’t have kombucha starter tea sitting around, that’s okay; I explain how to dye these rustic, eye-catching eggs with things you surely do have in your kitchen today.

I only have homegrown eggs, which are gorgeous of their own accord. But their darker hue does make colored dyes pretty difficult.

But dyeing eggs is a tradition in this house that my momma started long ago and one that, I hope, will be a fun little part of every Easter, no matter my age.

Since most of our layers this Easter are Cuckoo Maran, that means most of my eggs are an earthy spotted hue. Until this spring, I’ve always had a wide array of egg sizes and colors, between the many breeds of chicken and the ducks. My natural-dyed eggs always turned out gorgeous. Here’s a picture I took of my daily allotment of eggs a few years back…

And the Easter eggs I dyed that year were very colorful–sage, periwinkle, and deep orange. I give you full directions for those over in this post.

But alas we had a hen-house tragedy last fall–I explained in the facebook live at the end of this post, if you wanna hear the story–and we now have almost all Marans. I have to say I do adore the hens. They’re a very friendly, sweet temperament to each other and to anyone who wants to pet them.

Yes, we pet our chicken.

And we hand-pick snacks for them. But I digress.

My point was simply that  our Maran eggs are not the best for Easter dyeing.

Because it’s an important part of our family’s Easter tradition, not dyeing eggs was not an option. Because my 9 hens leave me with more than a dozen eggs every other day, buying bleached white eggs from the store was out of the question in this practical girl’s mind.

So I set up a few of my favorite natural dyes for eggs, boiled a dozen brown eggs, grabbed a few white crayons (to make fun geometric patterns on the eggs before dyeing them) and got out my kombucha starter tea.

Kombucha has served many purposes our our home these days, and I have found I can use my extra starter tea for almost anything that I would use vinegar for, including dyeing Easter eggs.

Go here if you’d like to know more about the many products I love using to make my own kombucha (including my favorite pour lid for Mason jars.)

And take a peek over here if you’re curious about my list of items I could not live without in my farmhouse kitchen.

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The Spinach Didn’t Work

For the spinach dye I simply boiled 3-4 cups of water, tossed in a handful of spinach, added 2 tablespoons of kombucha starter tea (feel free to use vinegar) and let that simmer for about 1/2 hour. After soaking a hard-boiled egg in the spinach for hours, the green hue was barely noticable, while the onion skin dye (more on that in a second) was doing fabulous.

Not sure if it was my brown eggs or my refusal to break up the spinach that caused my problem, I pureed the spinach/vinegar water and tried again.

But I was sorely disappointed after a few more hours of egg soaking. So I took the eggs right out of the pureed spinach dye and added them directly to the onion skin dye. After another hour or so of soaking I was pleased with the results. While the green didn’t show up on my brown eggs, the soaking in pieces of spinach left interesting reside that then mingled with the onion skins for some pretty neat marbling. So I guess I should tell you how to make a dye of onion skins, huh?

The Onion Skins Made a Perfect Dye

To make my onion skin “bath,” I boiled 4 cups of water, the outer layers off of 4 medium onions, and 2 tablespoons of kombucha stater tea (again, feel free to use vinegar). Once it reached a low boil, I turned it down to simmer for 30 minutes, took the pan off the heat, and added my hard-boiled eggs. I soaked them for a few hours, but could have easily let them soak overnight as well. And of course I could have soaked them for just a few minutes if I had white eggs and wanted a lighter orange tint.

My Favorite Was a Combo

When the dozen were done, the ones that had started in the green dye and transferred over to orange were by far my favorite. The two layers, and a little bit of rubbing with an old cloth, made for a pretty marbling look. Added to the crayon markings, it looked rustically Easter, or maybe they just looked like a total mess up. But hey, even mess ups can be pretty, no?

One Final Detail

While I love the chalky, matte look, I decided I wanted to fancy the eggs up just a tiny bit with a shiny finish. I put a small drop of oil on a rag and gently rubbed them all over. Then rubbed them again with a clean, dry rag, to get off any excess oil. Voila. I’m pleased.

Now to make a bunny cake… (You can see that here.)

If you’d like to know more about how to make your own delicious, carbonated kombucha (which btw is oh-so-good-for-your-gut yummy), I’m elated to tell you, after a full year of trial, error, research, and talking with experts, I have finally released my latest book, Simple DIY Kombucha–see it right here–and I really think you’ll love it. Bonus, it comes with $44 worth of coupons on products I use and love, to get you started off with a credit in your pocket!

Watch here for my quick and simple tips on organizing a BIG Easter egg hunt on a TINY budget.–>

Oh, and here’s that fb live video I promised, if you’d like to know about our hen-house tragedy and why we now have Cuckoo Maran hens–>

 

Wanna know more about kombucha?–>

 

 

Whatever Easter traditions you may be enjoying this year, I truly pray you know the reason the first Easter celebration occurred. Even better, I pray you personally know the one who willingly died so that you may truly live. Feel free to message me if you’d like to know more about why He makes my life full of joy.

 

See these other Easter-related posts!

How these 3 simple Easter traditions point to Christ.

Four simple tips for last-minute Easter baskets.

Delicious meringue cookies that tell the story of Easter to young children.

More about kombucha…

My favorite kombucha flavors that I make.

A cost analysis of exactly what it costs to make your own kombucha

What do you need to get started making this amazingness?

 

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With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all. Acts 4:33

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