Introduction: Easter Eggs Dyed With Onion Skins
Boiling eggs that have been wrapped snugly in onion skins, produces beautifully patterned Easter eggs.
I never really cared for the usual colourful Easter eggs most people make. They're too gaudy for my taste. I don't like the mess involved with making them and I don't like using all that food colouring. So, for the past ten years or so, I've been colouring my Easter eggs the way my grandparents used to; using onion skins.
Step 1: Materials Needed
Here is what you need to make these kind of Easter eggs:
- eggs
- onion skins (pieces as large as possible)
- 20 cm (8 inch) squares of cloth
- rubber bands
- a pot of boiling water
- some vegetable oil
I start saving onion skins for a month or two before Easter... I guess that's pretty much all of Lent. If you don't have enough onion skins saved up by Easter, ask your local grocery store if you may get some loose onion skins from them.
Step 2: Wet Everything
Soak your onion skins in a big bowl of water. (I just used a small bowl since I made a single egg for this demonstration.) Be careful with your onion skins. When they are dry, they are pretty fragile and you want to keep them as large as possible.
Just dip the squares of cloth in the water, then wring them out so they are damp. Also dip the eggs in the water; it helps the onion skins cling to them better.
Step 3: Wrap the Eggs With Onion Skins
Wrap onion skins around each egg. If you are lucky, you'll have skins from the top or the bottom of an onion. These naturally conform to the shape of the egg. If not, just make sure you cover the entire surface of each egg with pieces of onion skin. The water should help the skins cling to the eggs.
Step 4: Wrap in Cloth
Place an onion skin wrapped egg in the middle of one of your squares of cloth. Wrap the cloth snugly around the egg so the onion skin presses tightly against it. Securely tie off the top of the cloth with a rubber band.
Step 5: Hard Boil
Carefully add each bundled-up egg to a pot of boiling water. Boil them for seven minutes or so, until they are hard boiled. If you happen to crack one of the eggs when you are putting them in, add some salt to the water; that'll supposedly keep the whites from leaking out of the crack.
Step 6: Rinse in Cold Water
Once your eggs have boiled long enough, carefully pour off the boiling water and run some cold water into the pot to cool the eggs down.
Step 7: Unwrap the Eggs
Carefully remove the rubber bands and take the eggs out of the cloths. Peel off the onion skins (you can toss the used onion skins into your compost). Voila The shells of the eggs will now be covered with beautiful patterns transferred from the onion skins in shades of brown, yellow, and green.
Step 8: Give the Eggs Some Shine
Wipe the eggs dry. Put a little vegetable oil (I used canola oil) on a cloth or paper towel and rub onto the eggs. The oil gives the eggs a nice shine and seals their pores which should help them fresh longer.
Step 9: The Finished Eggs
There you have it. Use your Easter eggs as decorations for a few days, then crack, peel, & eat 'em. (Ever since I was a little kid, I always crack my hard boiled eggs against my forehead!)
When you peel the eggs, you'll notice that some of the colour has bled through the shell and has coloured the egg white. Don't worry, they are still perfectly safe to eat - more than I'd dare say about eggs coloured with artificial dyes. Despite the colour transfer onto the egg whites, there is no onion taste to the eggs.
Incidentally, I have tried using red onion skins for this as well, hoping to get red coloured eggs. Didn't get any red eggs though. Those eggs looked the same as the eggs I made with brown onion skins. Go figure.
100 Comments
6 years ago
My grandmother (Lithuanian) and mother would crush dye tablets and dip a wet egg in several different colors, wrap the egg in dry onion leaves then cloth. The eggs were so beautiful they looked painted.
9 years ago on Introduction
Hello.can I use red onions as well? Does anyone have pictures of what they look like?
10 years ago on Introduction
Ooh, that's really pretty!
13 years ago on Introduction
nice 'ible! I actually just posted on my blog about these, using a different method. I was wondering if it would be ok with you if I added a link to this instructable so people could see another variation?
here's the post:
http://forefare.blogspot.com/2010/04/kraszanki-easter-eggs.html
(it's strange...my eggs came out very dark red. I think I just cooked them longer with the onion skins or something. :)
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
You bet Betsy! Thanks for linking to this!
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
you're welcome :)
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
I like your technique, shortone, for a different take on this. I also like the marbling you get from wrique's. Combined like Voltron (or Wonder Twins, if that's how you roll. . .) you could have a wicked cool Easter basket!
12 years ago on Introduction
it is so amazing stuff.. My wife done like that .. http://dyingeastereggs.com
13 years ago on Step 9
this is very inventive and intersting, you're right it does look far more classy than the crayon colors that most of us associate with easter. thanks for posting, i'm excited to give this one a shot
13 years ago on Introduction
these are beautiful. thanks for sharing :)
13 years ago on Introduction
My mother taught me how to do this (exactly the same method) when I was a little boy in the 1950s! We have done th eggs this way every year since and taught our kids. No onion flavour issues.
13 years ago on Introduction
haha, what makes a better smell than hard boiled eggs? ONIONS and eggs!! hehe
13 years ago on Introduction
when my family dyes with skins, we don't bother with the cloth bundles. We just toss everything in the pot and cook them till they are the right colour. Granted, the 'toss and boil' method doesn't leave the cool patterns as pictured above.
13 years ago on Introduction
my family has been dying eggs in skins all my life and we have never had any onion flavouring issues.
15 years ago on Step 5
... or a little vinegar will keep the whites from running out.
Reply 14 years ago on Step 5
Not sure that vinegar is a good idea here. It does help to contain the white, but I think it also interferes with the onion colouring.
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
Actually I believe the vinegar would work as a mordant, and help the color of the egg be more colorfast.
Reply 13 years ago on Introduction
That's right, the vinegar will help keep the eggs more colorful, even after repeated washings! Sorry, couldn't help myself. It is true though that vinegar should help the dye from smudging in the wet grass or coming off on the little one's clothing... Probably not as much of a problem with onion skins as it would be with beet or red cabbage dye.
13 years ago on Introduction
we tried the onion, Brilliant! The Bermuda onion wasn't as good and was the beet green was a bust. Also, we used coffee filters instead of the cloth and that worked great.
14 years ago on Introduction
I wrap up flowers against the surface of the egg, and they leave a pattern you can get green eggs using red cabbage as a dye