Yes, You Can Make Food Coloring Right At Home

My first experience with natural food coloring happened in elementary school. My class was tasked with hand-writing the Preamble to the Constitution — in cursive, mind you — on a sheet of paper and making that paper look aged, as if it were the original document. First, I crumpled up the paper. Then, I burned the corners and sides with a match, and finally, I soaked the whole thing in a baking sheet full of steeped Earl Grey tea. (Nothing to antique? You can also use the tea to make Earl Grey orangeade). The result lent our new piece of paper the look of 200-year-old parchment. That's when I learned that tea equals brown. 

This is just one example of how you can use ingredients from your fridge or pantry to make different colors without synthetic food coloring. Later in my life, when I began experimenting in the kitchen, I found that ground, dehydrated blueberries gave a gorgeous, pale purple hue (Notice how I didn't say "blue") to whipped egg whites and sugar which I used to top my lemon merengue pie. Ground, dehydrated strawberries transformed white vanilla frosting into a peachy-pink color. From fruits and vegetables to spices and beverages, you really can create the rainbow without touching a liquid or gel food coloring. 

Of course, the colors you get from natural sources will generally be more muted than synthetic ones, and your source could affect the texture of the item you're coloring. For example, adding too much liquid into a fruit puree could affect the stability of frosting, so a powder made from a spice or dehydrated fruit might work better, instead. You also don't want to ignore any potential flavor clashes. If you want a very dark, black color for a cake, activated charcoal might be a tastier choice than squid ink.

It's not terribly difficult to find a natural food source for any given color you're looking to create. Generally, the color the food will be the color you can extract from it, with a few exceptions. 

Beet juice and raspberries create beautiful ruby or dark pink colors; sweet potatoes, carrots, and turmeric will give you orange; use saffron and golden beets for yellow; and get gorgeous green shades from matcha powder (think of the grassy-hued Starbucks Matcha latte), spinach purée, and parsley juice. For blue, try butterfly pea flower tea or blue spirulina powder. Pull purple from blueberry purée and purple sweet potatoes or carrots. You can also mix rich shades of brown from espresso, strong brewed tea, cocoa powder, and cinnamon. 

If you're using powders from dehydrated veggies or fruits, you can usually just add your desired amount to the food you're coloring. But if you're using juice or puree, you'll want to reduce it over heat for the most vibrant colors. Just allow the concentrated liquid to cool completely before you add it to your recipe. Homemade food coloring can be mixed into frostings, batters, and doughs, but is also incredible in cooked rice, homemade colored pasta, and shredded, dried coconut. It's a whole new way to "eat your colors" and truly taste the rainbow.