Natural Beet Juice Red Dye
This Natural Beet Juice Red Dye has no chemicals and is perfect for coloring cake batter or frosting red or pink. Artificial food coloring is used most widely and is a very dangerous additive in the food we eat like rainbow cereal is one example. There are many people who have an allergic reaction to it as well. But making homemade food dye is actually very easy and inexpensive.
Ingredients
- 3 medium – homegrown or organic beets
- 2 cups (473 ml) – water
- ½ tsp. – distilled vinegar
- Supplies
- Food processor
- Cheese cloth
Instructions
- Peel, rinse, and place into a small saucepan. Pour 2 cups of water into a saucepan and bring it to a boil. As soon as the beets come to a boil reduce the heat and let it simmer for 30 minutes.
- When beets are done boiling remove from the heat and let cool to warm. Dice cooked beets, transfer them back to the original red water the beets were boiling at, and let them cool to cold releasing more red color (for at least 4 hours or overnight).
- Next, bring diced beets to a boil, reduce the heat to low and let the slight boil for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it cool to cold. There will be very little liquid left and that’s normal.
- Transfer cooked diced beets into a food processor and pulse for 30 seconds. Finally, transfer processed beets into a cheesecloth (or any cloth with minimal holes; I made my own cheesecloth out of white curtain material).
- Squeeze the juice out as much as you need for the recipe. Add vinegar, stir and there you go! Natural, no chemical added red dye for any recipe of your choice. PS. (I do not discard the red beet scraps from the cheesecloth but make red borsch out of it).