These dinosaur eggs are a fun twist on hard boiled eggs that leaves your peeled eggs looking like dinosaur eggs! When my boys were little I was browsing recipes when my then 4 year old son walked into my office. He took one look at the computer screen and exclaimed, “Mom! Is that a dinosaur egg??!” What he had spied was actually a Chinese Tea Egg. When brined in a mix of tea, and spices the crackly designs look (to me) like something you’d see on a Halloween themed table, but I took a mental note to make these with fun colors when Easter came around and we could pretend they were Dinosaur eggs. My boys thought they were SO cool.
Ingredients Needed
- Hard boiled eggs
- Water
- Food coloring
How to Make Dinosaur Eggs
- This really couldn’t be easier! The first thing you need is a bunch of hard boiled eggs. After the eggs are cooked, cooled, and dry, gently tap them on the counter top. You want to create little cracks all over the egg. It’s okay if a few small pieces of shell fall off, but try to avoid breaking large chunks off. You should just have small tiny cracks all over. In fact after you make a few taps on the counter, you can even gently squeeze the egg in your hand to crack the shell.
- Use liquid food coloring to tint some water, and plop your eggs in. For some reason, my Ikea kids cups are always my egg-dying cups. We wanted a few different colors so we put a single egg in each cup. This part isn’t rocket science. No specific measurements, just, ya know…do it. I let my kids squeeze in the food coloring so I’m guessing there are about 847 drops in each cup. If you want to be exact.
- Let them sit in the fridge for several hours, or overnight. I’ve actually only let them sit overnight, so I can’t tell you how many hours will do it if you don’t leave them in all night. Somehow that makes it more fun too. My kids get all excited to wake up in the morning and crack their eggs open.
- Remove the eggs from the water, rinse them off (so you don’t color your hands, um, not that I’ve done that…) and gently remove the shells, revealing the dino designs inside!
Dinosaur Eggs
A fun twist on hard boiled eggs that leaves your peeled eggs looking like dinosaur eggs!
Ingredients
- hard boiled eggs
- food coloring
- water
Instructions
- Hard boil your eggs and allow to cool.
- When eggs are cool and dried, gently tap them on the counter top, enough to create cracks, but not enough to loose large chunks of egg shell. You can roll the egg on the counter or gently squeeze it in your hand to create more cracks.
- Fill cups with water and some food coloring-just eyeball it!
- Drop your eggs in the cups and store in the refrigerator overnight.
- The next day, rinse your eggs under cool water, peel, and reveal your dinosaur egg pattern!
Cost: $5
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Questions & Reviews
My boys, ages 2 and 3, are making these today. I can’t wait to see what they think tomorrow when we take the shells off!
My little two year old LOVES dinosaurs and he found this post while we were looking at what cookies we were just going to bake. He has been scrolling through admiring the dinosaurs and eggs for a while now. Guess we will have to make “dinosaur eggs” after our cookies are done, haha!
Love these. I have my eggs boiling now. The boys and I are making these tonight for fun colored deviled eggs to take for Easter dinner tomorrow night. 🙂
We have a Spiderman egg kit. A few of these in the mix will look like “Spidey” has been there. Thanks!
Our favorite thing to do with Easter Eggs (after the hunt on Easter morning) is to make creamed eggs! Favorite Easter tradition, especially if we crack the eggs a bit to let the dye in (like Dino Eggs). Just make a thin to medium white sauce and then put the cut up hard boiled eggs in it. Serve over toast. So festive and so YUMMY!
So cute- just boiling my eggs now for deviled dinosaur eggs
Thanks Sara, it was great idea, I read it today and made them today. My three year old took them to nursery today, he was very happy. I made little change to it, after slightly cracking the egg, boiled the egg again in coloured water in a small pan (individually). Take it out rinse under the clod water and peel it as you desire (fully or half) for same perfect and quick results. TIP: – you can use same egg-dying cups, add some dye and hot water and boil the egg in Micro wave oven for one minute leave it stand for few minutes rinse and peel, make sure cups are Microwave able.
Very cool. I have made these before, but not on purpose… Good to know I wasn’t being clumsy…just artistic!
And I just reread the original post and realized you actually mention tea eggs, whoops.
This is similar (in final appearance, at least) to a dish in Chinese cuisine called Tea Eggs — basically, you par-boil some eggs, crack the shells as you do here, cool, then bring a pot of water with a few tablespoons of loose black tea (or tea bags if that’s all you have), half a cup of soy sauce, and your choice of spices (whole spices work best, there’s a lot of leeway but something like star anise, cinnamon stick, and some allspice would be a good starting point), then gently simmer the eggs in it for half an hour (you’d think this overlong cooking would make them tough or rubbery, but something about the broth infiltrating through the cracked shell or maybe just the long slow cooking leaves them if anything a little tenderer), after which you let them cool in the pan, then soak overnight in the fridge. They get that same marbling in a faint brown, and are delicious.
Yes, tea eggs were the inspiration!