What food coloring can be made from. How to make food coloring at home? Food coloring recipes

Modern industrial food colorings are quite toxic, in this regard, confectioners and culinary art lovers know how to make food coloring natural and safe.

For cooking use only natural ingredients, so they are harmless to health, compared to store-bought products. Natural dyes are isolated in a variety of ways from plant products - various root crops, berries, fruits and leaves.

Food coloring at home

The richness of colors in the composition of the ingredient depends on the time of preparation of products and the necessary conditions for maturation. The main advantage of natural food colors is the ability to cook at home. The necessary components can be found in the kitchen or in the nearest vegetable store.

How to make your own food coloring at home

When staining culinary masterpieces homemade food coloring uses shades of green, red, yellow, and combinations thereof. They do not differ in too bright rich colors, unlike store-bought products, but, of course, they are safe for health, especially for children. To get a variety of color combinations, it is worth remembering how to make food coloring at home:

1. First, vegetables of the desired color are boiled, then they are kneaded to a mashed state and filtered through a sieve;

2. The prepared liquid is boiled with an open pan;

3. To obtain a thicker consistency, two teaspoons of sugar are added to the confectionery mass.

The prepared dye goes well in a dessert with cream.

DIY food coloring

Juice from fresh produce obtained after pressing the grated mass. Frozen berries and fruits release juice after being thawed in the microwave.

To prepare a palette of other shades of food coloring with your own hands, you will need:

carrot nectar;
spinach nectar;
beet nectar;
blackberry nectar;
blueberry nectar;
egg yolk.

How to get edible paints

Useful tips on how to get food coloring:

The red shade is squeezed out of forest and garden berries - lingonberries, cranberries, raspberries, cherries, strawberries, currants. Beets and red cabbage, red wine are perfect;

A yellow-red shade is squeezed out of carrot puree;

A yellow tint is isolated from crushed saffron leaves and grated lemon zest;

The blue color is obtained from a mixture of starch with indigo paste, black grapes, blueberry juice and eggplant;

A bright green color is obtained from mashed spinach leaves;

Brown tint is easily obtained from cocoa powder, coffee and melted chocolate;

The orange gamut is isolated from coarsely grated carrots squeezed from citrus zest.

Unfortunately, you should not expect rich colors from natural ingredients, but the main advantage is the safety of use and the availability of food coloring.

Everyone knows that artificial colors used in cooking are very dangerous to health. Therefore, many try to use natural products to obtain color. It is not difficult to do this, and the naturalness and safety of the dishes will be guaranteed.

Why dyes are needed

Dyes are divided into natural and synthetic. Natural dyes are plant products and do not contain chemicals. Synthetic dyes can be gel, liquid and dry. Food coloring is used in Food Industry to turn ordinary products into real works of art and increase sales. They don't have any taste properties therefore do not affect the taste of the products.

Substances obtained through a chemical process are harmful to the body. Therefore, many people prefer to prepare dyes on their own from more natural products. Thus, you can not only make the dish colorful, but absolutely safe. And for this you don’t need to buy expensive components at all, since ordinary products will do.

Harm of artificial dyes

The chemical industry produces a huge amount of substances, which are then used to make products more attractive. But not everyone knows what exactly is hidden behind synthetic dyes. For example, even the composition of most of these mixtures cannot be determined without lengthy laboratory studies.

And manufacturers do not always adhere to standards and easily violate the amount of dangerous components contained in dyes. At the same time, the harm of such substances is not only in possible allergies. Some preservatives can cause oxygen starvation, adversely affect the nervous system and provoke the development of tumors. Therefore, it is important to limit the use of such products, and use only natural dyes for homemade dishes.

How to make dye at home

To do this, just open the refrigerator and choose any vegetable or fruit that matches the color. You can take juices, jams, herbs and even seasonings for this purpose. As for the storage of natural dye, without sugar it will only be good for a few days. But with the addition of sugar, the dye will quietly stand for 10-14 days. The main thing is to place it in a glass container with a tight lid and do not leave it warm.

Red color
In order to give the dish such a shade, you can use the juices of raspberries, strawberries, cherries or cranberries. Regular red wine will also work. various jams. It is advisable to add several components, then the red color will be more saturated. Often, housewives use ordinary beets to prepare dishes with a red tint. And for good reason, because this vegetable is considered the strongest natural dye.

It is not difficult to get a coloring pigment from beets. To do this, 1-2 fruits must be washed, peeled and grated. Then the beets are poured with water and boiled for about an hour over low heat. Also, 0.5 tsp must be added to the broth. citric acid otherwise the dye will discolor from air oxidation. Once the beetroot has cooled, it must be strained and used to color the dish.

Orange color
The easiest way to get orange natural dye is to use carrots. It also needs to be cleaned and grated. Then the vegetable is laid out in a pan and poured with butter, previously melted in a water bath. The ratio of carrots and butter should be 1:1. Next, the mixture should be darkened on the stove for about 5 minutes. The oil should acquire the desired shade, after which the cooled carrots should be squeezed through cheesecloth.

Yellow
To give the dish a yellow color, lemon is most often used. Its zest is rubbed on a very fine grater, and then squeezed and filtered juice. You can also get a great yellow tint by mixing a little turmeric in warm water.

Green color
For a rich green color, you can use fresh spinach. It must be rubbed through a sieve or crushed with a meat grinder. The resulting mixture must be boiled for half an hour, and then filtered through gauze.

purple and Blue colour a
They can be obtained by using eggplant skins, dark grapes or blueberries. Perfect fit and purple cabbage, which you just need to cut and boil. If you need to get a brown color, then the easiest way to achieve this shade is with sugar. It must be mixed with water in a ratio of 5: 1 and placed in a pan.

It is necessary to fry sugar on a small fire and at the same time stir it constantly. After the mixture has acquired the desired shade, water is added to it and filtered. In addition to burnt sugar, chocolate, coffee or cocoa can be used to obtain brown color.

Black color
Often black is used to decorate dishes. Achieving such a shade is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. For sweet dishes, for example, for a cake, you need to use cocoa powder. But not ordinary, but a special grade powder called "Dutch Ultra". It contains more chocolate and is itself much darker than traditional cocoa. And for salty dishes, squid ink is ideal.

Beige color
In order to get a beige color, many chefs recommend adding, for example, a little tomato paste to the cream. The color depends on the amount of paste, so when adding a large number tomato cream will turn out not beige, but closer to orange. Taste like dessert tomato paste does not affect.

If several natural dyes prepared earlier are stored in the refrigerator, then you do not need to look for ingredients to get a new color. You can mix existing colors and get the one you need. For example, for the color of the sea wave, you can mix blue and green, and to get a blue dye, just mix green with red. In order to get a black tint, you need green, blue and red dyes. And a beautiful pistachio color will turn out if you mix yellow and blue.

A lot depends on when exactly the coloring matter is added to the dish. Therefore, it is important to know:

1. Dyes should not be added to fresh dough. It is better to saturate pastries with dye. But this rule does not apply to meringues.
2. If the dough is needed not for baking, but for noodles or dumplings, then dyes, on the contrary, are recommended to be added immediately during kneading. After all, then paint finished product fail.
3. In the cream that is used for decoration, the dye also needs to be added at the last moment. Otherwise, excess components may adversely affect the stability of the cream during whipping.
4. Do not rush and add as much dye as possible. 1-2 drops are enough to see what color will turn out. Yes, and make it richer then much easier.

These are just the basic ways to get different colors. If you approach the matter with imagination, you can get unusual shades. They will decorate any dish and surprise guests very much. And safe components will not harm health, so all the goodies can be eaten by children.

Video: do-it-yourself natural food coloring

Recently, a huge number of whistleblower programs have appeared. As a rule, the presenter, in tandem with an experienced expert, tells millions of viewers on the other side of the screen what everyone's favorite products are actually made of. Debunking myths often involves various additives and food colorings. Information about the dangers of such products makes many refuse their favorite delicacies. But do not limit yourself, because you can always learn how to cook any dish at home.

The question most often asked is something like this: “Can you make natural food coloring at home?” The Super Chef editors have gone through the soil, and we say with confidence: “Yes, you can.” There are a few basic rules to follow in order to make your desserts not only tasty but also very colorful.
The benefits of natural dyes


There are several of them at once. We would like to focus on the main ones.
No preservatives
No harmful chemicals
Complete safety for health
Bright and natural color
Pleasant and richer taste
How to replace popular dyes
Red. It can always be obtained from berries, fruits and vegetables. Suitable currants or cherries, strawberries or raspberries. Pomegranate, cranberry and even red wine are often used. Also choose red bell pepper, tomatoes, beets or paprika powder (sweet). Beets are the most popular option. Vegetables are washed and peeled. After that, it is rubbed on a grater and poured with water. Beets need to be boiled over low heat under a lid. So that the broth does not lose color, 0.5 tsp is added to it. citric acid, and only then filter and use.

Orange. The main source is, of course, carrots. Wash and clean it and grate on a fairly large grater. Melt butter in a pan and send carrots to it. You need to fry the vegetable for several minutes. Let the mass cool, and then squeeze it through cheesecloth. The dye is ready.

Green. Use spinach leaves. To begin with, pass them through a meat grinder, and then squeeze the resulting pulp through cheesecloth. If you want to achieve a dark green color, boil the spinach for 30 minutes, and then strain.

Yellow. It is usually obtained from lemon peel. Just grate it on a fine grater and wring it out. You can also take saffron, grind it and dilute it warm water. Let it stand for a day, and then strain.

Blue and purple. Whatever you think, but even these colors can be easily obtained. For example, from grape juice, eggplant peel, blueberries, and red cabbage leaves.

Brown. This color is obtained from roasted sugar. Mix the powder with water (in a ratio of 5: 1) and send to the pan. The resulting mass must be fried over low heat. Don't forget to stir it constantly. Fry until the result is a brown product. Add water to sugar. And then just pass it all on. Now feel free to use the dye.

Colored glaze and powder

To prepare the glaze, you need to mix natural dye with powdered sugar to the consistency of a paste. It is this paste that is used to cover pastries and cakes.
Coconut can be used to make powder. Just combine in a bowl 2 tbsp. l. coconut flakes from 1–2 tsp. dye. Wait until the dye is absorbed - and the powder is ready.
You can store any natural dye for 1-2 days. If you have prepared a concentrated dye, keep it in the refrigerator for no longer than 14 days. Each color is best placed in a dark glass container. This will extend the life of the product. So, preparing natural dyes is very simple. And if you want to achieve the most unusual shades, just mix several options. Do your friends also want to know the secrets of making natural dye? Share the link with them!

Today we will learn how to make natural, red food coloring. As you already guessed from the title of the article, we will make it from beets. The method is quite simple, and what is perhaps the most important thing here is that we will use only natural ingredients and no chemicals. After all, unfortunately, now various chemical dyes and flavors (many of which are marked with the letter “E” on the packaging) have become very firmly established in our lives, and most likely already forever. Well, so, we will make red food coloring on our own.

DIY red food coloring

As I said above, we need red beets. The beets will need to be grated, put the resulting mass into enamelware and pour cold water. When you fill the beets with water, pay attention that the water covers the resulting beet mass by one or two centimeters. Then we put it all on fire, bring it to a boil and then cook for another three or four minutes, while adding two or three drops of vinegar or a little citric acid to our dye.

After that, remove the pan from the stove, cool, strain the beets and squeeze. That's it, red food coloring is ready. You can use it for coloring butter cream(when making cakes or pastries), drinks, and everything edible that, in your opinion, needs to be tinted.

Here is such a fairly simple and far from laborious way to prepare red food coloring from beets. Use on health!

Do you have your own recipe How can you make food coloring at home? Share your secrets with the readers of our site.

And at the end of the article, watch also a video on the topic, where you will be shown the process of preparing such a natural red dye using this vegetable. We look.

P.S. If the article was useful to you, please share it on social networks with your friends. I will be very grateful.

Natural food colorings - easy, environmentally friendly and useful 95% of the information a person perceives with the help of the eyes, and making a dish brighter means making it more attractive. So, the juicy burgundy color of borscht or a multi-colored salad definitely stimulates the appetite. It is on this that the demand for food coloring in cooking is based.

For thousands of years, people have successfully used the gifts of nature, extracting food colors from them. Now we have incomparably more opportunities for such research - let's see how you can prepare natural food colors at home and what requirements we have for them.

Requirement 1 - Natural dye

Exclusively natural materials - extracts, pomace and juices, decoctions and tinctures from seeds and fruits of plants, from leaves and bark. Animal materials are not used to color food due to their strong characteristic taste, difficulty in obtaining and short shelf life.

Requirement 2 - Food coloring means edible

This requirement implies not only the edibility of the dye, but also a minimum of its own taste. Ideally, the dye should be completely tasteless ( onion peel) or add some zest along with the color (citrus zest or coffee). The taste of the coloring should not affect the taste of the final product, but this is difficult to implement in reality - and a separate problem when using natural colors is the result of mixing flavors and aromas.

Requirement 3 - Coloring food

This requirement includes durability and invariability of color - at least for a short time, although natural dyes definitely lose out to synthetic ones in these parameters.

How to make natural food coloring at home

The beauty of natural food colors is their availability. These are the foods that we eat almost every day, familiar and healthy, inexpensive and accessible. Beets, carrots, spinach, spices, bright berries and citrus fruits - this is our rich arsenal at home.

The answer to the question “what to make natural food colors from” is at hand in every kitchen.
We can use:
1. Freshly squeezed juices from colored foods.
2. Shredded and fried their pulp.
3. Direct addition of fresh pulp to the final product.
Feel free to focus on the original color of the vegetable or fruit: if the beets are already dark red, then we will not get an orange or green dye from it. Accordingly, green spinach will not give us a red dye, no matter what we do with it.
However, with natural dyes, the same principles of mixing paints apply as with watercolors, gouache or synthetic dyes. If you want orange dye, mix red and yellow. Need green - mix yellow and blue food coloring.

How to Get Red Food Coloring and Pink Food Coloring

Beets and fresh red berries (raspberries, lingonberries, cherries) serve as sources to help get red food coloring and pink food coloring.
Contrary to popular belief, beets will not give us a rich red color - depending on the concentration, we will get shades from pale pink to burgundy. Grate fresh beets on a fine grater and simmer them in a small amount of water over low heat. When the beets are stewed and "give up color", squeeze the liquid through cheesecloth or a fine sieve. For a more vibrant and long-lasting color, add half a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
For a pure red, use freshly squeezed lingonberry juice, but don't forget its characteristic sour taste.
Raspberries will give various shades of pinkish and raspberry, cherry - darker shades of red.
If you use such natural dyes for cream, a few drops of juice will be enough to give an interesting shade.

Dye blue natural food

A pleasant blue and blue color is obtained using blueberries, blueberries or red cabbage. It is most convenient to crush blueberries or blueberries in a sieve or mesh colander and add the resulting natural blue food coloring to cream or dough.
Red cabbage juice gives an interesting blue or blue color. It is good to paint with this boiled juice egg white and decorate their salads.

yellow food coloring

Carrots, sea buckthorn, turmeric, saffron, citrus fruits give sunny shades of yellow and orange. Carrots - the most affordable option: grate bright carrots on a fine grater and fry them over low heat in vegetable oil. Squeeze the resulting slurry through gauze or through a thick sieve.
Sea buckthorn berry juice can be added to creams or dough, it will give us the same cheerful yellow tint.
You can find turmeric in any spice department, that too. a good option receive YELLOW FOOD DYE. Pour a tablespoon of dry powder with warm water or alcohol, hold for a day in a dark place and strain. Turmeric is a budget option for saffron, it doesn’t give such an amazing taste, but it works very well as a food coloring.

Green food coloring

The soft green color gives us spinach. There are two options: - use freshly squeezed juice of leaves and stems - stew chopped spinach in water and then rub the gruel through a thick sieve.
Spinach green food coloring is often used to color dough.

Synthetic dyes and their invented harm

The volumes of consumption of dyes are growing year by year, the requirements for the quality and safety of food colors are growing even faster - and manufacturers are simply forced to meet the needs of buyers.
The prototypes for many synthetic dyes are natural dyes. So, for example, curcumin or carotene are almost identical in composition to natural ones. In addition, the quality and safety of synthetic food colors is controlled by the WHO International Commission; all permitted for use are included in the Food Code - a code of quality standards food products and semi-finished products, which include nutritional supplements.

Synthetic food additives are easier to use than natural ones, do not require preliminary preparation and special storage conditions, can be stored for a long time and definitely will not change the taste of cream or dough.
If you want to get not just pleasant shades, but bright natural colors - we offer you all types of food colors available today: dry, gel, liquid.

Proven manufacturers, guaranteed fresh and high-quality products, a huge selection of useful and pleasant little things for cooking - a supermarket for confectioners will do everything to make the cooking process a real pleasure for you.