Red Eggs for Greek Easter
My older 3 boys have a Greek heritage and I love so many of the traditions of the Greek Orthodox. I’m not particular about celebrating Orthodox Easter, but I do make sure and incorporate the Greek Easter traditions into our regular Easter celebration.
I wrote about how I enjoy traditions and feel they are very important, but, I also like to keep them simple. Dyeing eggs red has a great meaning, plus, it simplifies the egg dyeing tradition. We only need red eggs.
We dye our Easter eggs red to represent the blood of Christ.
And how do we get such beautiful crimson? It’s actually pretty simple:
How to Naturally Dye Eggs a Crimson Red
- Dry “paper skins” from yellow onions. (from about 5-10 yellow onions)
- Eggs
- Water to cover eggs
- 2 TB white vinegar.
Add all ingredients to a pot, boil for 30 minutes, with a lid on. Check the eggs: if they the right shade, remove them and cool. If you want them to darken, allow them to cool in the water and then place them in the refrigerator, (still in the water with onion skins) overnight. Rub the eggs with olive oil to keep them vibrant.
These photos aren’t edited – this is the real color of the eggs! I will never go back to food coloring again- God’s natural colors are so much more vibrant!!
*Note: as long as I use yellow onion skins, they come out nice and red, getting “yellow” onion skin is important to the color.
Another bonus – the color doesn’t come off on hands.
After Easter dinner, we go around the room, cracking the eggs against each other to see who’s egg can “win”. As we do so, we remember:
“And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.”
Matthew 28:2
He is no longer there, He is risen!
These photos aren’t edited – this is the real color of the eggs! I will never go back to food coloring again- God’s natural colors are so much more vibrant!!
*Note: as long as I use yellow onion skins, they come out nice and red, getting “yellow” onion skin is important to the color.
Another bonus – the color doesn’t come off on hands.After Easter dinner, we go around the room, cracking the eggs against each other to see who’s egg can “win”. As we do so, we remember:
“And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.”
Matthew 28:2
He is no longer there, He is risen!
We also make Greek Easter Bread. Click here for the recipe.
Thanks for including this. We are Orthodox, and real foodies, so this is great!
We are Russian Orthodox. All my childhood we had beautiful red eggs using onion skins, with water from our home made pickled beets.
Easter Bread is manditory, as well. I gather up a few friends and we make it together.
I love red eggs – and that you managed to get this gorgeous red without the dye that makes them inedible.
Did you start with brown eggs?
I started with white eggs.
I use only brown eggs. They come out a beautiful deep red.
Dry “paper” from yellow onions. Are you talking about the thin flakey layer on the outside of the onion? These are gorgeous! I would love to do this with our son. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. 🙂
Great! Thank you!
So confused as to how this works. It’s like an exciting science project! We are coloring eggs naturally this year. I was pretty worried but, I think it will be easier than I thought. So do they have an onion flavor?
No onion flavor. 🙂
beautiful! Mine were more orange but I didn’t boil the eggs in the mix. Something to try for next time!
Wow, that is incredible! And I ♥ the tradition, I’ve never heard of that. Definitely going to have to do that this year!! It’s my daughter’s 1st Easter 🙂
Sounds so awesome, so how long do you keep the eggs in the water ande they are raw to start or do you hard boil them first?
Hard boil them in the onion water, so yes, raw to start.
My son has Greek heritage. Wish he could have known his Yaya before she passed. Not sure if this is spelled right…Christosa nestea
🙂
Christos Anesti! (Christ is risen)
Alithos Anesti (Truly, he is risen)
This comment has been removed by the author.
It’s Yia Yia
Does the color bleed or come off at all? We’ve hidden eggs before that were dyed with food coloring, only to have the dye bleed onto furniture or carpet.
I have not had the color come off.
Thanks!
Do you know what exactly haoppens to trigger the color change? There must be components in the paper skins that react with the vinegar…? I’d like to know from a “scientific” perspective, as this would be a truly enriching activity to do with kiddos: Christ-centered teaching, healthy/nutritious/nontoxic, and a “science” experiment all wrapped into one!
I don’t know, but I’m sure google could give you some answers. 🙂
My eggs turned out to be a dark orange brown- no red in it. Do you hard boil them in their skins, or do you take the skins out of the water?
What is the secret to get them red? I used the dry paper skins from the yellow onions. Do you think red onion skins would work?
I have done both, boiled with the skin in the water and after removing it. Perhaps it depends on the onions, I have gotten more orange/red at other times, it seems to vary every time.
Red onion skins come out similar, slightly more brown tinged.
I just tried this and mine turned out orangish definately not crimson!! a little disappointed but still cool, not sure what I did wrong?!
Perhaps it depends on the onions, I have gotten more orange/red at other times, it seems to vary.
i tried this last night and am so excited about the results! This is really cool! I now have my new favorite way to dye eggs! My kids love it too! THANK YOU for sharing this!
We were always told The beautiful brown Rich color was the result of it being a rabbit egg
We save up onion skins from cooking all during Great Lent and then do as you do, except we then keep the eggs in the colored water over night, in the fridge. That prevents the orangish-color, you get a very deep red. You can then polish them with olive oil to get a nice shine on them.
Oh thank you! I will add that bit of info to my post, that will help a lot of people!
Glad to hear you refrigerated the eggs……I would NEVER leave them sitting out over night.
I already boiled my eggs. Do you think it would work to leave them in the water overnight in the fridge? Or do they really have to cook in the water?
They will change color a bit, but I think they will just be orange. Please let us know if you do it and what your results are!
Mine came out quite brownish orange. Beautiful either way. Thanks for the recipe. Christos vascreas! (Christ is risen! – Russian Easter salutation)
Thanks so much for sharing this. I didn’t want to do the typical American egg-dying, but this was perfect for us. As it turns out, this is not just a Greek thing, but an Orthodox thing. So, these are also Russian and Ukrainian Easter eggs, perfect for my Russian and Ukrainian kids! I had no idea until I saw your recipe. The only other thing I am doing for Easter is making Paska, which is an Eastern European Easter bread.
I did this this year (just yesterday 🙂 and the eggs were splotchy from leaving the skins in the water when I boiled the eggs. Next time, I think it will work better to strain out the onion skins before boiling the eggs in the onion water.
Has anyone tried dying anything else with this formula? I’m so curious if this would work on clothes or other things. I’ll try it & post my results, but I’d love to hear if anyone else has already tried this or knows what the results might be.
This may sound weird, but I live in Africa and we don’t have yellow onions this time of year. Would red onion skin or beet juice work? Thanks!
The beets might be closer to red, a friend of mine has this one her blog- you may find it helpful. 🙂 http://www.healthhomeandhappiness.com/easy-naturally-dyed-easter-eggs-for-families.html
When leaving the eggs in overnight, does it turn the egg white a different color?
No, I don’t remember the color going through the shell like typical “food coloring”, but don’t hold me to it- it’s been quite a while since I left them overnight.
I love the red and love that the eggs are naturally dyed!
I Tried this way of making eggs !! And i think to get best result you have ti leave them over night in the fridge after boiling let it cool off and leave the eggs inside the pot with the water and the skins. Leave it inside the refrigerator over night. And you should have auburn red ish eggs!! Its not going to be bright red because natural dye does not work like that!
Dont be disap with your eggs unless you do only the 30 minutes and you take then out then they will be orange. Leave over night!
When I rub them with oil in the past, the red dye comes off. Do you drain them and wait a few days to rub the oil on? They seemed patchy after the oil and I didn’t get the shiny dark red. Thanks
[…] take the credit for this marvel of genius – check out Nourishing Minimalism’s post “Red Eggs for Greek Easter” or Sophaki Cooks’ “Natural Dye Easter Eggs” for a full […]
Isn’t 30min a bit too long to boil the eggs? I followed the instructions and the eggs are a dark red, but a lot of them cracked! What did I do wrong?
Your simple but clear directions were exactly what I was looking for since I have been wanting to do this natural dye process for a while. I did the complete boil/cool/refrigerate process and was happy with the results. It wasn’t as red as with food dye, but still a vibrant red. There were cloud-like variations because of the physical contact with the skins, but I like that. I may try the suggestion of straining the skins out before boiling the eggs in the water just to see how that works too. Finally, I used all white eggs but threw a brown egg in too, for comparison. I will use brown in future because the color was a bit deeper and more even.
Thanks again for this helpful post.
My Greek sister-in-law (in her early 70s) didn’t know how to dye the eggs red. I’m Scandinavian/Croatian! 😂