Adding colors to your food can make your meals more fun and interesting. But before taking that bottle of artificial dyes and incorporating it into your recipe, be mindful that they are linked to an array of health issues, which can quickly spoil your efforts and ruin your diet.
Fortunately, you can use lots of natural ingredients to obtain different hues, allowing you to reap more benefits than simply having brightly colored foods. From vegetables to fruits, herbs, and spices, you can color foods while boosting nutrition simultaneously. If you’re not sure how to do so, read below and discover how you could blend them into your recipe and healthily add colors to your meals. Also, find out the benefits of using moss for a purse planter.
Vegetables
Veggies are brimmed with essential minerals, vitamins, fiber, phytonutrients, and antioxidants that your body needs daily to function properly, combat diseases, and stay healthy. What’s remarkable is that there are lots of ways you can use vegetables to bring color to your meals while taking advantage of their nutritional value.
The first is by juicing them. Parsley, bell peppers, kale, and broccoli are some of the vegetables for a fresh hint of green color. Simply add two tablespoons of the concoction into your dressings and batter to bring a viridescent punch to any of your dishes.
Alternatively, you can also boil your veggies like beets to get an all-natural food coloring. Simply place the beets in a saucepan with water. Cover it and boil into medium heat. Allow it to simmer until only a few tablespoons are left. The resulting liquid serves as the coloring, which you can use to color cookies, cakes, candies, pasta, and sauces.
If you’re fond of eating raw vegetables, then why not make a rainbow veggie salad instead? You can use cauliflowers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, squash, carrots, broccoli, cucumber, quinoa, and legumes for a satisfying, colorful meal.
Are you craving some meat? Level up your pork skewers by adding red onions, purple eggplants, orange squash, yellow corn, zucchini, purple cauliflower, white mushrooms to make it more exciting.
Fruits
Like veggies, fruits are nutrient-dense foods that can be utilized to add hue to your recipes. No surprise as fruits boast some of the most stunning and tasty-looking colors on the planet. Simply choose ones that have vivid colors and can stain, such as cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, and pomegranate. You can also squeeze out the color by juicing or boiling them. For instance, you can use blueberry syrup to top your breakfast pancake or make red velvet cupcakes using pomegranate juice.
Spices
While spices are renowned for their distinct taste, they can also blab color to your recipes with a single pinch. If you want an orange-red color, get some paprika and sprinkle it on foods where you want to add the color. If you’re looking for a yellow color instead, saffron and turmeric are your best options. You can use them to add a yellowish touch to your dips, sauces, and rice. Eggs are no exception as you can give them a golden hue using those two spices. Plus, you get to benefit from all the medicinal properties they offer for a healthy, colorful treat.
Fresh Herbs
Thanks to their chlorophyll content, fresh herbs can provide that beautiful green kick to your dishes. You can choose from a variety of herbs, such as basil, mint, cilantro, chives, rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, and tarragon, and use them on different types of meals. Add them to soups, pizza, pasta, and simmering dishes. Not only do you get to maximize their vivid green color, but you enjoy lots of health benefits brought by herbs like reducing risks of heart disease, diabetes, blood clots, plus their anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory properties.
Flowers
Flowers are innately beautiful and pleasing to the eyes. Though not all flowers are edible, there are stunning and colorful ones you can add to your meals. You can use lilac, mums, roses, sunflowers, violets, lavender, honeysuckle, hibiscus, marigold, clover, and nasturtium to your salads and desserts for a unique, appetizing meal.
Takeaway
That’s the rundown of how you can use various natural ingredients to impart color to your dishes. Remember, the possibilities are endless, you can always experiment and find out other fun and nutritious ways you can use them in your kitchen.