Some vegetables may seem like good candidates for natural food dye, but if they have high water content (as does celery) they will actually produce very weak, light shades. Many vegetables (even those with vibrant coloring) lack the thick, concentrated juices produced by many fruits. In general, do not expect vegetable-based food dyes to be as bright or even as those made from berries. Beets (for red) and carrots (for orange) are exceptions to this rule.
For a more concentrated color, only use as much water as is needed to barely cover the vegetables. The colored water becomes the dye – the more you dilute it, the lighter the shade. A good rule of thumb for figuring out which vegetables produce the best colors is that those that stain your fingers when handling them will also easily dye the foods with which they come into contact.
For large vegetables (especially sphere shaped ones), cut them into extremely thin slices before dehydrating them. This will speed up the process and dry them more consistently. Once dried, your vegetables can be safely stored in an airtight container for several months to a year.
You can also use a mortar and pestle to grind the veggies by hand, but this will take much longer and could result in less even consistency. Thoroughly rinse off any utensils you use to make the powder before using them to grind up a different color of dried food. This will keep you from contaminating the color and flavor (if any) of your next veggie powder.
If you are not worried about watering down your food, you can mix the powder into a small amount of water or other liquid and then stir this into the food. Do this gradually to achieve the right color and avoid over-saturating your food. For yellow dye, use stale turmeric. Turmeric is often used to give vegan puddings and tofu scrambles their “eggy,” yolk-like shade. Stale turmeric tends to have lost quite a bit of its natural flavor, so use this to avoid influencing the taste of your colored food.
To figure out which fruits will work best for your purposes, squeeze or blend fruits and pour the juice into a clear glass. Hold the glass up to the light; the less light that passes through, the better the juice will work as a food dye. For red or pink coloring, raspberries and cherries are good options; strawberries produce a lighter, more pastel shade of pink. For blue or purple, try blackberries or blueberries. [6] X Research source
You can start with either fresh or frozen fruit if you are blending it, but fruits must be fresh in order to juice them effectively. [7] X Research source Be sure to remove any pits, large seeds, or inedible peels before tossing fruit into the blender; these can ruin your machine and will not help your food dye production efforts. Add a very small amount of water to the fruit if you are using a food processor in order to allow the fruit to adequately liquefy. [8] X Research source
Straining is essential for maintaining consistency and smoothness in your dyes. However, if you are going for a less even look, you can choose not to strain the fruit juice (so long as there are no seeds in it!). Very finely-blended berries will be impossible to strain completely and will most likely end up with tiny flecks of skin and fibers in them; if this is not acceptable, consider juicing or boiling instead. Don’t use a sieve or strainer with mesh that is large enough for seeds and fibers to pass through. Test-strain a small portion of your juice to make sure your mesh is effective.
This process results in a highly concentrated dye, which will have dense flavor, especially if it is made from berries. Be sure to use it sparingly to avoid flavor contamination. Skip this if you are going for a lighter, more pastel coloring.
When in doubt of how something will turn out, use a small portion of dye and food to test the outcome. You can then adjust the shade of your coloring substance if necessary by mixing it with other shades. Avoid mixing too many different colored dyes together when trying to settle on a color. This can end up making the dye lose its vibrancy and turn out brownish.
An exception to this would be if you actually want to add flavor from your dye to the food. In such cases, be sure to match the flavor types (such as sweet with sweet) to avoid creating an unappealing mixture. [12] X Research source Not all dye production methods are equal in terms of intensity. Generally speaking, juicing and blending will create dyes that are both brighter and more intense tasting than the boiling or drying methods recommended for some vegetables. [13] X Research source
For powdered coloring, stir into wet, blended foods such as cake icing or mashed potatoes. Sprinkling powder on a dry food will not spread the coloring consistently. For liquid coloring, use sparingly in all foods unless wetness is not a concern. Dry foods, for example, can become too soggy if too much liquid coloring is used.
This method doesn’t work quite as well for savory foods colored with sweet dyes. If you color cauliflower red using raspberry puree, for example, even lots of salt and butter might not be able to mask the sweetness of the dye. Many extracts and other substances that can be useful for masking flavors, such as truffle oil, are quite expensive (and potent), so use them sparingly!
