How to make healthy Easter eggs

Published: 27 March 2017

Easter is coming up again soon and no doubt chocolate and marshmallow eggs will be rolling in your front door. This year we’ve come up with something a little different for Easter.

Asher Regan

Food Service Advisor

Hi, I'm right into good, healthy food; trained in nutrition and as a chef.

This school holiday activity is a themed science experiment that will not only educate your kids but keep them busy too. You’ll also end up with some pretty cool, coloured Easter eggs to eat.

Want to try this with your kids now? We walk you through every step of the way in our easy-to-follow guide below.

Just for your information, the eggs need to be refrigerated in the dye overnight so you and your little ones will need to be patient. 

Things you need to prepare

Hard boiled eggs – if you want a perfect hard boiled egg every time, follow our fool-proof steps:

1. Store your eggs at room temperature
2. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Gently lower the eggs into the boiling water
3. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes so they are hard boiled
4. Once they are cooked remove from boiling water and cool in a bowl of cold water

Top tip: Hard boiled eggs can be stored in the fridge in their shells for a few day before using.

Top tip two: How do you know if your eggs are hard boiled? If the egg spins quickly on a hard surface then it’s hard boiled. Uncooked eggs will have a wobbly and unsteady spin.

Top tip three: Cooling and peeling eggs. After eggs have been removed from the heat source, they continue to cook due to residual heat. To stop the cooking process transfer the eggs to a bowl of cold water. You can add ice to cool quicker. The cold water creates a layer of steam between the shell and the egg white – this makes peeling easier. Cooling the eggs quickly also stops a grey ring appearing round the yolk.   

Chopped vegetables:

1. Roughly chop your beetroot and put to one side
2. Repeat this process with the cabbage
3. Peel the skins from the onions and keep the skins (you will make the dye from the skins).

Top tip: Keep the left over onions in a cool dark place for using another time.

Making natural vegetable dyes

Making your own dyes can be a fun activity to share with children and the results are just as good if not better than using food colourings.

Using vegetables we can make a range of natural coloured dyes:

• Yellow dye from onions skins
• Purple dye from cabbage
• Red dye from beetroot

Place your chopped beetroot, chopped cabbage and onion skins in three separate pots.

Cover with water and bring the vegetables to the boil and cook for approximately 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool with the vegetables still in the water.

Once cool drain the liquid from the vegetables and keep - these are the dyes ready to use.

Marbling Easter eggs

Now the fun really begins! Take your cooled, hard boiled eggs and gently crack the shells all over making sure the shell stays on the eggs.

Place your cracked eggs into the dyes and refrigerate the eggs in the dyes overnight. Then the next morning you can remove the eggs from the dye and peel the shells carefully from the eggs.

Voila! You have colourful marbled eggs and a healthy Easter treat ready to serve.

Want to try out a cool kids’ science experiment?

After you have marbled the eggs using the natural dyes there is another experiment you can do with the dye made from the cabbage. This dye contains a natural pigment called anthocyanin which works as an acid/base (pH) indicator.

The dye from the cabbage changes colour when an acid (vinegar) or alkaline (baking soda). Give it a try to see what different colours you can create!

• Put a small amounts of the purple cabbage dye on a white plate or bowl and then add a few drops of vinegar and see what colour it turns – this is your reference for the colour the dye will turn when an acid is added.
• On a clean plate and with new lot of dye add a small amount of baking soda- this is your reference for the colour the dye will turn when an alkaline substance is added.

Compare the colours of all three – how cool is that?

Can you use the red cabbage dye to work out what other foods are acid or alkaline?

While you have the vinegar and baking soda out of the pantry, there’s one last experiment that all kids will love - mix a small amount of the two together and step back. It’s probably a good idea to do this outside or at least over a sink.
 

Hope you have a happy Easter break and we would love to see your marbled Easter eggs so make sure you share to our Facebook page.

Download our lesson plan and add it to your list of rainy-day activities or take it to school so your classmates can try it out.

My kids would love this!

See other lesson plans