Easter is one of my favorite food seasons because of all the lovely pastel, spring colors that pop up. And recently, it has become so easy to find Natural Food Colorings for all your Easter recipes. So today, I want to share a few of my faves with you and show you just how gorgeous they are!…
A good many years ago, I did a post about how to make your own natural food colorings using plants. While that post absolutely still applies, these days it is even easier to use plants to create vivid colors in all your baked goods and even beverages. Ice cream, cake and cupcake frostings and even cake batters. Vegan food colorings are bold and vibrant. And you can find them in stores and online! Many of the “big brands” are even producing all natural versions of their colors because they know the demand is there.
Just Foods. If you want to try basic foods at home to mimic the store-bought stuff, here are foods to try:
– turmeric: yellow
– pitaya: pink
– beets: red/pink
– spirulina: green
– matcha: green
– blue-green spirulina: blue
– butterfly tea: blue
– acai: purple
– blueberry powder: purple/blue
– crushed freeze dried berries: red
– purple cabbage juice: purple/red
– blackberry juice: deep blue/purple
– charcoal: black
– spinach juice: green
Or snag a box of vegan, plant-based food colorings to make all sorts of colors… Oh hello there gorgeous (plant-based) colored frostings..
A few products I have tried:
– 365 brand plant-based food coloring (Whole Foods)
– Watkins natural food coloring (Amazon)
– India Tree (Amazon)
Have not tried:
– McCormick Colors (Amazon)
– Color Garden (Amazon)
Rainbow Sprinkles:
– Carnival Mix Sprinkles – love these!
Those active colored ingredients are plants like spirulina, turmeric, beets..
These cupcakes were my wacky chocolate cake cupcakes.
And here was my frosting made using these colorings. Note: I didn’t really find much difference between the two brands. They worked pretty much the exact same.
Rainbow Swirl Cupcakes. I added all the different colors to one frosting bag to create this pretty swirl. I’m not an expert in this technique by any means, and I’m sure you can find a good tutorial online to help you master this process. But it was pretty simple! Just pie the different colors in tall towers in one bag and then swirl! This is a great tutorial by the bewitchin kitchen.
Here is the basic frosting recipe I used: Vegan Buttercream Frosting
And once you have the colors, you can make all sorts of fun recipes! Like….
Easter Cupcakes:
Flower Cupcakes – you could color the marshmallows with the food colorings to create pretty petals!
These chocolate cupcakes are READY for some pretty frosting on top!
This Easter Smoothie uses fruit to create pretty colors!
The red was very bold, and made using plants!!
The yellow is made using turmeric, nice!
Need more recipes? Check out this vegan Easter recipe round-up!..
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* disclosure: this post contains Amazon Affiliate links
So out of all of the different food colorings you mention in this article, which on would you recommend the most? (in your opinion)
the watkins and 365 brands are very similar and both work really well. India Tree is great too, but too expensive IMO.
Thank you!
Honestly, I don’t have a favorite… they all work well. It depends what you can find in stores. I always prefer to use real fruits and veggies to color recipes, but the store-bought colors are super convenient these days.