How to color dishes with natural ingredients

A delicious dish not only needs to taste good but also needs to be beautiful. Natural food coloring is both safe and attractive to diners.

1- Create red color

There are 3 types commonly used to create red color: gac, beetroot, and cashew.

Gac is a very popular fruit, everyone knows that gac is used to color red sticky rice for death anniversaries and Tet. The most used parts of the gac fruit are fresh gac pulp and gac seeds to mix with sticky rice. Nowadays, people also process gac pulp into dried pieces or dry powder, gac oil... for easy storage and use.

Make red

Beetroot is mainly used to cook soup but can be used to dye red for cakes, candies, jellies, etc. The red color of beetroot is due to the betalains group of colors, which are easily soluble in water, have a high and beautiful color content, but are less resistant to heat, so they are suitable for coloring food in the family.

Beetroot coloring

Cashew nuts are red in color and can be used in the form of whole, dried nuts, ground into powder or extracted into cashew oil, which is commonly sold in markets. People often use this type as a spice. The red pigment in cashew nuts is fat-soluble, insoluble in water, non-toxic, and has a chemical structure of provitamin A.

2- Create green color

This is the most popular color among natural colors, perhaps because the raw materials to create this natural dye are very abundant. Green is taken from plants, mainly leaves such as pandan leaves, bamboo leaves, rattan, Chinese knotweed leaves, and gotu kola leaves, etc., used to color cakes. However, this color is not stable at high temperatures.

Make green

– Pandan leaves

This type of leaf is very easy to grow and is commonly grown in many places. Pandan leaves (called "la ngang" in the North) give a fresh green color, the extract is easily soluble in water, has color fastness at high temperature for a long time and has a very pleasant, characteristic aroma. Pandan leaves are used to color cakes, jellies and some soft drinks. Pandan leaves can be steamed directly from fresh leaves or crushed, squeezed to get the color.

– Malabar spinach leaves (also known as Malabar spinach or Malabar spinach)

The color of this leaf is quite resistant to heat, easily soluble in water, often used fresh, crushed and squeezed to get the juice to dye cakes.

Bamboo leaves, rattan

People use the green color of bamboo leaves and rattan combined with the color of dong leaves to dye green banh chung, or use it to dye some types of cakes, drinks, tea, jelly... to make the dish look more beautiful, without strange taste and with less impurities.

– Kaffir lime leaves

People often take young, fresh leaves, crush them, squeeze out the juice, mix with sticky rice to cook sticky rice, make banh khuc, have a beautiful light green color, characteristic aroma, and are non-toxic.

3- Create yellow color

Use turmeric or saffron to get the juice. Turmeric is used fresh, crushed to get the juice to color cakes, pancakes, curry powder, soups... very beautiful.

Create yellow color with turmeric

Another way is to squeeze the orange juice and then strain it through a sieve to remove the pulp and seeds. You can also use passion fruit juice to create a delicious orange color. However, it depends on the dish to choose the appropriate coloring ingredients.

4- Create orange color

Coloring with carrots

Carrot juice mixed with dissolved sugar will give you a sweet orange color.

5- Create purple color

Purple leaves are often trusted to create a beautiful purple color that is odorless, non-toxic and durable at high temperatures for a long time. Usually, people use fresh purple leaves, grind them, squeeze out the juice, add alcohol, salt... to dye sticky rice and cakes. In dried form, purple leaves still give a purple color but not as beautiful as the fresh form. This type of leaf has no flavor, is picked, crushed, added with water, salt, alcohol and squeezed to get the juice.

Create purple color with purple leaves

6- Create brown color

When it comes to brown foods, you will probably immediately think of caramel, a brown liquid or also known as caramel water, which is formed when we caramelize sugar, often used in the family for braising, cooking, and baking.

Depending on the dilution or concentration of the caramel solution, we can create many different suitable brown colors from light brown to dark brown. Your food will have the delicious flavor of this caramel combined with the sweet brown color that will make your family fascinated.

Create brown color with caramel

In addition, brown color is also taken from coffee, cocoa, chocolate,...

7- Create black

This color is not very attractive so it is rarely used, however, little does not mean it is not delicious. Gai is a fiber plant but the leaves are used to dye black jelly and a special cake called gai cake which is jet black like tar.

Make black with ramie leaves

According to Ngoisao.vn