How to Dye Easter Eggs with Rice (No-Mess Rice Shake Easter Eggs)

Looking for a fun new way to dye eggs for Easter? Grab some Ziploc bags and use them to dye Easter eggs with rice! These cute rice dyed Easter eggs are a great activity for kids because they are simple to make and mess-free, which means less cleanup for Mom and Dad.

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Does your family usually dye eggs for Easter? We used to just get the plastic ones from the dollar store and paint them with washable kids’ paint, but we started dyeing real eggs a few years ago and it’s been a lot of fun experimenting with different ways to colour the eggs.

(Thankfully we all like to eat devilled eggs, so the dyed eggs never go to waste.)

Last year, we tried dyeing eggs with Kool-Aid, whipped cream and bleeding tissue paper. They all turned out great!

This year, we wanted to try something new. And when I found out that you could use rice to dye Easter eggs, I was really curious—especially since unlike some of the other Easter egg dyeing ideas I’ve seen, this one was mess-free.

We always have lots of rice in our pantry, so we decided to give it a go. And as it turns out, making rice dyed Easter eggs in bags is as fun as it sounds!

Plus, once we were done colouring the eggs, we were able to extend the fun by using the coloured rice for other activities.

So if you’ve been looking for a fun new way to dye Easter eggs, why not give these DIY rice dyed Easter eggs a try?

Required Supplies

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own mess-free speckled rice Easter eggs at home:

• Hard boiled eggs
• Uncooked rice (we used ½ cup of dry rice per colour)
• Small Ziploc bags
• White vinegar (optional)
• Liquid food colouring (you can also use gel food colouring, but you’ll need to adjust the quantities)
• Latex or nitrile gloves (or another material you prefer—they’ll be used to prevent the food colouring from staining your skin when you pick up the eggs)

How to Dye Easter Eggs with Rice and Food Colouring (Step-by-Step)

1. Pour Rice into Ziploc Bag

Start by pouring ½ cup of uncooked rice into a zip-top sandwich bag. If you’re planning on using multiple colours, take out multiple bags and pour ½ cup of rice into each.

2. Add Food Colouring

Add 10-20 drops of liquid food colouring to the bag of dry rice. I added 15 drops per bag, but 20 probably would have produced more vibrant results, especially for the lighter colours. (If you’re using gel food colouring, you’ll need to add less since the colour is more concentrated.)

To make the colour brighter as it transfers to the eggs, you can also add a little bit of white vinegar. I don’t recommend adding more than ⅛ teaspoon per bag—if you add too much, the rice will get too “wet” and the eggs won’t look the same.

Note: Feel free to mix two colours of food colouring to create a new shade.

3. Shake Rice

Seal the Ziploc bag and shake the rice around in order to spread out the food colouring.

You actually have several options when completing this step. The more you spread out the colour, the lighter the colour of the eggs will be, so feel free to experiment and see what you prefer.

To make pastel-coloured eggs, keep shaking the rice until the colour is evenly spread throughout. (This is what we did.)

For darker eggs, don’t spread the colour too evenly. This will allow it to be more concentrated and will give a more speckled look to your rice dyed eggs.

4. Add & Shake Hard Boiled Egg

Once you’ve done shaking the rice to spread the colour around, open the bag and gently drop an egg onto the rice.

Then, seal up the bag again and start shaking.

This was definitely the best part, and one I highly recommend you let the kids do. (They can actually do most of the steps themselves, as this project is quite simple and very kid-friendly.)

I loved that because the egg and food colouring were inside a sealed Ziploc bag, colouring the eggs with rice was mess-free. I don’t mind messy activities, but it’s always nice to have a no-mess option for days when there isn’t much time for the cleanup.

Keep shaking the egg until it has the desired hue.

You can always add more food colouring if the colour is too light, but if you do, I recommend removing the egg first (wear gloves to avoid staining your hands) to prevent the food colouring from falling directly onto the egg and creating a blotch of colour.

5. Let Egg Dry

Repeat the previous step as many times as you like, using as many colours as you like. You may need to add a few more drops of food colouring in between eggs if you’re reusing the same rice to dye several Easter eggs.

Once you’re happy with how each egg looks, put on some latex or nitrile gloves to avoid staining your hands and carefully remove the egg. Then, place it on a ceramic plate and let it rest undisturbed until the food colouring is fully dry. This shouldn’t take long.

When the rice shake Easter eggs have fully dried, they will be ready to display. How easy was that?!

What About the Coloured Rice?

My kids enjoyed helping me dye Easter eggs in rice, but the leftover coloured rice was probably their favourite part of this project.

After we were done decorating the eggs, I made sure to leave the rice bags open in order to let the rice dry completely. (This worked fine because there wasn’t a lot of rice, but you can also pour it onto a baking sheet to dry if you want to speed things up.)

Then, I used the dry rice to create a rainbow rice sensory bin.

My kids had so much fun scooping and pouring the rice, and when they were done playing with it, we simply poured the rice right back into a Ziploc bag in preparation for next time. They played with the rice for days after the eggs were done, which was an awesome bonus!

If sensory bins aren’t your thing or you have older kids who don’t play with them anymore, you can also use the rice for crafts. This Rainbow Rice Bunny Craft is perfect for Easter, but there are lots of other possibilities as well. Use your imagination!

Related Easter Egg Dyeing Activities

Looking for more fun ways to colour Easter eggs with your kids? Check out these articles:

• How to Dye Easter Eggs with Cool Whip
• How to Dye Easter Eggs with Kool-Aid
• How to Dye Easter Eggs with Tissue Paper

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