How To: DIY Natural Food Coloring
DIY Natural Food Dye
Simple, 1-ingredient natural food dye perfect for coloring frostings, baked goods, and more!
Servings 3 (1-Tbsp servings)
Instructions
- Wash and thoroughly scrub your beet. Then finely grate over a paper towel or thin, clean dish towel, being sure to set the towel over a plate so the beet juice doesn’t stain your countertops. 1 beet should yield roughly 3 Tbsp (45 ml) beet juice.
- Once your beet is grated, gently squeeze the beet juice into whatever you’re dying – in this case, it was buttercream frosting for vegan sugar cookies.
- The more juice you add, the more intense the hue (see photos).
- Other readers have suggested turmeric for yellow, pomegranate for red, and matcha powder or spirulina for green!
Video
Notes
*Nutrition information is a rough estimate.
Nutrition (1 of 3 servings)
Serving: 1 one-Tbsp servings Calories: 7 Carbohydrates: 1.5 g Protein: 0.2 g Fat: 0 g Saturated Fat: 0 g Trans Fat: 0 g Cholesterol: 0 mg Sodium: 0 mg Fiber: 0 g Sugar: 1.4 g
Jeannie says
Since black is made from equal parts of red, yellow & blue, you could try mixing liquid from beets, turmeric & blueberries or blackberries to see if that works for you. Or you could use raspberries for the red coloring as well.
Sherry says
Do you have any suggestions on best way to color French Macarons? To give them a red color?
Hi Sherry, hmm, we don’t, sorry!
sherry says
ok, Thank you.
Rachel says
This was SO easy and a beautiful color! Thank you!
xoxo!
Vikki R Shelton says
I need suggestions for black icing with no dyes! please help thanks!
Hi, you might be able to use black cocoa powder! Or possibly activated charcoal if you’re comfortable adding it to food.
Jeannie says
Since black is made from equal parts of red, yellow & blue, you could try mixing liquid from beets, turmeric & blueberries or blackberries to see if that works for you. Or you could use raspberries for the red coloring as well.
Ellen Robison says
This was very helpful in making an artificial dye-free icing for some strawberry cupcakes. I DEFINITELY recommend a cheese cloth or dish towel and not paper towels because the paper towels absorb too much of the juice as well as start tearing as you squeeze. Yes your towel will be permanently stained but if you make your own dyes frequently just set that one aside to be the one you use each time. Also if you don’t want your hands to be stained for a while, wear food prep gloves.
Thank you for sharing, Ellen! We’re so glad it was helpful!
Mou says
Pandan leaves in the grinder, or mortar n pestle, without water, grind till fine, and squeeze. The extract both tastes and smells good, besides giving a green colour
JH says
Hi there,
Can this be use for cookie dough?
Perhaps! The color may become less vibrant with baking though.
Chelsea says
Of you wanted to bake any tips on how to keep the color vibrant? Thank you!!
Hm, we’re not sure, sorry!
Chelsea says
I appreciate your reply! Thank you.
Jayden says
I recently used purple cabbage with some baking soda to dye my frosting using this method after quickly boiling it! It worked great and came out a really beautiful blue. I assume you can not add the backing soda for a purple, as the only reason it was blue was due to the ph change from the baking soda!
Yashasswini says
Hello.. thank you.. it was so helpful for me. I was tried red velvet cake with beetroot puree instead of food colour. Taste is good but it was turned out like a pudding . Can I able try these food colour by adding it in cake batter? Pls tell me. If it can, tell me that how to add beet juice means directly can I add few drops of beet juice r else I have to mix beet juice with icing sugar? I wanna try a red velvet cake for my brother’s birthday
Hi there! I’d recommend adding it in purée form, such as in this recipe!
Carol A Konyha says
I would love recipe suggestions for red velvet cupcakes –no artificial dyes please!
thank you,
Carol in Phoenix
Kim says
This was so easy! Other recipes require you to cook the beets but this is way faster. I made the Minimalist Baker funfetti cupcake recipe (except without the sprinkles) and of course it was amazing!! None of my friends could believe they were vegan.
I wanted to try dying the icing the color of red wine. I was worried it would taste weird with that much beet juice. I got the icing a pretty deep pink and I still couldn’t taste the beet flavor. I added cocoa to make it more like the color of wine. The amount of beet juice made it runnier, so I just added extra powdered sugar until it thickened up. It tasted really good with a little bit of cocoa! I didn’t get the color quite right but I was still impressed what you can do with beet juice and a little cocoa. Next time, I would just make the icing without the splash of non-dairy milk and would use the beet juice to thin it instead.
We are glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe, Kim!
Roopa says
Wow ! Thanks so much for the lovely idea. I used it for my daughter’s birthday cake. Pink frosting and all of us loved it. It was my first try and it came out very well.
Lele says
This was the most helpful way to make this it was so easy, it was my cousins birthday and I didn’t want to make her a plain white cake.i loved how this recipe didn’t need anything to do with cooking like the other recipes
Thanks so much for the lovely review, Lele. We are so glad you enjoyed it! Next time, would you mind leaving a rating with your review? It’s super helpful for us and other readers. Thanks so much! Xo
Bhumika says
Hi,was thinking of using beet for pink color..can i make my beetbuttercream frosting 2 days in advance.Am worried will it make buttercream color discolored
Melissa says
Thanks! I’m going to try this for my daughter’s birthday party.
Melissa says
Do you think this would work to colour white chocolate, or would it make it runny?
Hi Melissa! That should work!
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Nivian says
Im doing a rainbow cupcake and I want to use natural ways to color the batter.
beets-red
matcha podwer -green
blueberries – purple
what can I you use for yellow, orange and blue?
Im afraid that all these different ingredients will give the cupcakes a weird taste. any suggestion?
Hi Nivian!
For yellow: turmeric powder should do the trick!
Orange: carrot juice!
Blue: This may help. I have not tried these but if you do, report back on how it goes! Good luck!
Micke says
I accidentally made my daughter’s raspberry cupcakes blue-green. Not sure what happened, but I think it was a reaction like the one mentioned with purple cabbage. I added pulverized freeze-dried raspberries into a recipe for vegan, yellow cake batter (whatever I had left over from when I made the frosting). To my surprise, when we were ready to frost them, they were blue-green. Still tasted great though.
Kathy says
I have been told that when you add natural colorings, especially in the red and purple shades, that if you are baking that food it turns brown. So that would mean cookie dough and cake batter, right? I just wonder how the other colors react to heat.
esme says
what do you recommend I use to make black coloring?
Hi! Though I have not tried this, you can apparently use black cocoa powder or activated charcoal powder to make a natural black dye. Report back if you give it a try! Good luck!
fda says
great!!!
And helpful
Ernest Garcia says
This sounds like a silly question and I see it mentioned above. Does the beet or even spirulina affect the taste? I am joining in on my first cookie decorating day with my mother-in-laws family and wanted to use your cookie recipe along with icing.
A little, depends on how much you use. With the amount of beet juice you see there, not really. But spirulina has a stronger taste.
Michaela says
Amazing recipe and no beet taste at all! Thanks and happy holidays!
Jennifer Wilson says
This sounds like a silly question and I see it mentioned above. Does the beet or even spirulina affect the taste? I am joining in on my first cookie decorating day with my mother-in-laws family and wanted to use your cookie recipe along with icing.
A little, depends on how much you use. With the amount of beet juice you see there, not really. But spirulina has a stronger taste.
Ruth says
Love this!
Mika says
Any suggestions for St. Patty’s Day?
I’ve heard spirulina works great!
Micke says
Matcha green tea. The color is pale, but the taste is better than spirulina
Abigail says
Spinach.
Rebeka says
Does it affect the flavor of the icing at all?
fda says
It depends how much you put in.
Sriya! says
Nope, it doesn’t …as long as it is concentrated(reduced)..you can do that by bringing the juice to boil
Alexa [fooduzzi.com] says
LOVE this idea…especially for red velvet-loving me! I’ll definitely be playing around with this method – thanks!