Coloring sugar naturally with fruits & vegetables is very easy and so much fun! 😀 Can you believe that all these sugar sprinkles & hearts are naturally colored?
I used fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs and teas to naturally dye the sugar sprinkles and sugar hearts. You can make almost any color with homemade natural food coloring. Learn how to make 15 DIY all-natural colored sugar sprinkles & sugar hearts in all colors of the rainbow! 🌈
Related: Rainbow Ice Cream Cake With Homemade Natural Food Coloring
Homemade Naturally Colored Sugar
How To Make Homemade Naturally Colored Sugar Sprinkles
Stir together granulated sugar and some drops of natural food coloring (see recipes below). Use just two or three drops of natural food coloring at first – you don’t need much to color the sugar and you can always add more if necessary.
Let the naturally colored sugar dry for a few days at room temperature. Crush the sugar with the back of a spoon from time to time. Don’t use the oven to dry the sugar sprinkles because some natural food dyes are heat-sensitive. For example, the beautiful dark blue sugar – colored with red cabbage & baking soda – will turn ugly gray green when dried in the oven.
Related: Blue Mirror Glaze Recipe – Naturally Colored With Butterfly Pea Tea
How To Use DIY All-Natural Colored Sugar Sprinkles
Sprinkle naturally colored sugar sprinkles on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, desserts, ice cream and drinks. Decorate the rim of a glass or use naturally colored sugar instead of regular sugar in tea or coffee.
How To Make Naturally Colored Sugar Hearts
Stir together granulated sugar and some drops of natural food coloring until the mixture resembles wet sand.
Flatten the sugar mixture with a rolling pin or your hands. Using heart-shaped cookie cutters, cut out sugar hearts.
Carefully transfer the sugar hearts to parchment paper and let them dry for a few days at room temperature. After they’re dry, the sugar hearts have the consistency of regular sugar cubes.
Related: Striped Meringue Kisses – Naturally Colored & Vegan
How To Store Homemade Naturally-Dyed Sugar Sprinkles & Sugar Hearts
Store naturally colored sugar sprinkles and sugar hearts in a glass jar at room temperature. Naturally colored sugar keeps very well at room temperature because of the high sugar content.
15 DIY Natural Food Colors
Naturally Colored Pink Sugar
To naturally dye sugar pink, you can use berries, such as blueberries, vegetables, such as beetroot, or flowers, such as black hollyhock flowers.
Beetroot
Grate a beetroot, then strain through a sieve to extract the juice. Color the sugar with some drops of raw beetroot juice: Add more beetroot juice for dark pink, add less beetroot juice for baby pink.
Related: Strawberry Marshmallow Cake Pops – Naturally Colored With Beetroot
Black Hollyhock Flowers + Lemon Juice
Cover black hollyhock flowers with cold water. Steep it overnight to extract the color. Use some drops of the purple water to color the sugar.
If you want purple sugar, you can leave the sugar like it is, or add some drops of fresh lemon juice and the purple will turn pink.
Black hollyhock sugar is my favorite sugar because it’s such a pretty pink color and it tastes fruity and fresh.
Blueberry
Boil European blueberries – aka bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) – for about 5 minutes, then strain through a sieve to extract the juice. Dye the sugar with some drops of blueberry juice.
Blueberry sugar is darker and more red than black hollyhock and beetroot sugar.
Related: 10+ DIY Natural Fabric Printing Inks With Fruits & Vegetables
Fresh Rose Petals
Put fresh, dark pink or red rose petals in a mortar. Grind the fresh rose petals together with some sugar until the paste is smooth. Add more sugar if necessary.
Related: How To Make All-Natural Red Jelly With Fresh Rose Petals – Victorian Recipe
Naturally Colored Orange Sugar
Carrot
Grate a carrot, then strain through a sieve. Color the sugar with some drops of raw carrot juice.
Related: Homemade Fondant & Marzipan Carrots – Naturally Colored With Carrot Juice
Naturally Colored Yellow Sugar
Dandelion Flowers
Grind 1 part dandelion petals with 1 part sugar in a mortar. Dandelion sugar is golden yellow but tastes of dandelion flowers!
Turmeric
Dissolve turmeric in some drops of boiling water. Use some drops turmeric water to color the sugar. You can also add some drops of raw carrot juice to improve the color. Turmeric sugar will taste of turmeric!
Chamomile Tea
Cover chamomile flowers with water, bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 – 15 minutes. Color the sugar with some drops of chamomile tea. Chamomile sugar is pale greenish yellow.
Naturally Colored Green Sugar
Spinach
Using a blender, puree spinach until smooth. Color the sugar with some spinach puree. Add more spinach puree for dark green, add less spinach puree for bright green.
Even dark green spinach sugar doesn’t taste of spinach, it just tastes fresh.
Related: Edible Moss Or Grass With Natural Green Food Coloring
Kale
Make kale puree: Remove the stalks, use just the leafy parts of the kale. Boil the kale with some water for 5 minutes, drain and refresh with cold water. Using a stick blender, puree the kale until smooth. Then color the sugar with some kale puree.
Naturally Colored Blue Sugar
Red Cabbage + Baking Soda
Make natural blue food coloring with red cabbage and baking soda.
Related: Homemade Natural Blue Food Coloring With Red Cabbage
Color the sugar with some drops natural blue food coloring. Don’t use too much blue food coloring or the sugar will taste of red cabbage. You can mask the cabbage taste with some drops of peppermint essential oil or rum.
Butterfly Pea Tea
Cover the one teabag of butterfly pea flower tea with boiling water and let it steep for 10 minutes. Color the sugar with some drops of the blue tea.
Related: Vegan Naturally Blue Lemon Ice Cream With Aquafaba – Colored With Butterfly Pea Tea
Naturally Colored Purple Sugar
Red Cabbage
Use some drops of red cabbage juice (before adding baking soda) to color sugar purple. Don’t use to much red cabbage juice or the sugar will taste of red cabbage.
Black Hollyhock Flowers
Cover black hollyhock flowers with cold water. Steep it overnight to extract the color. Use some drops of the purple water to color the sugar.
Naturally Colored Red Sugar
Cooked Beetroot
Bring diced beetroot to a boil with some water, simmer for some minutes until the water turns dark red. Use some drops of the beetroot water to color the sugar red. Optional: add some drops of fresh lemon juice to improve the color.
Related: How To Make DIY Natural Holi Powder From Scratch
Please Pin It!
I love how you do all this experimenting and share the results. i’m really surprised how bright you managed to get some of these colours. Lots of artificial colouring really puts me off some recipes so the idea to diy is very appealing – thanks!
Thanks for your lovely comment! 🙂 What’s your favorite color?
Ah, that dark pink you got from the blueberries is probably my favourite, it’s a beautiful rich colour.
These are pretty. Thank you for sharing this with us at Funtastic Friday link party.
Thank you!
Oh they look cute! The pink ones are my favorite. Thank you for sharing this over at Food Friday! Excited to see what you’ll be sharing next. 😀
Thanks 😀
Oh, this is so good to know!!!
Thanks, Carrie!
Wow – these are amazing…so pretty, and so clever!! Thanks for sharing them with #CookBlogShare 😀 Eb x
Thank you! 😀