Naturally Dyed Rainbow Pasta

Turns out today is Eat the Rainbow Day, so the Sunday Funday crowd is doing their part to eat the rainbow!

I’m sure the intention behind this day is to eat plenty of fruits and veggies, but I decided to eat a literal rainbow (a couple weeks ago for St. Patrick’s Day, of course).

When the kids saw rainbow noodles on the menu, they were excited, remembering our previous St. Patrick’s Day tradition where I dyed cooked noodles with food dye and called it a day.

This time, I decided to take it a step further and dye the pasta dough itself, but not with food dye.  No, I wanted to stay true to eating the rainbow and dye my pasta with veggie purees!

The kids were watching the process and were extremely skeptical. They were especially wary of red (beet puree) and blue (blue butterfly pea flower), thinking they would impart a strong flavor to the pasta.

I can’t lie, I was a little worried about that possibility as well, but for each cup of flour, there was only a couple tablespoons of puree, so I figured (hoped) any flavor would be minimal at most.

Thankfully, my prediction was correct and any flavor from the purees was nearly imperceptible, especially once the noodles were tossed in butter, parmesan and a dash of garlic! 

And did I mention that the colors were stunning?  No, they're not as vibrant as some of the photos I’ve seen online (and I decided not to boost the colors in my photos so we can be real here), but I was still thrilled with the results!  This was certainly a fun kitchen experiment!

Want to see more colorful recipes?

• Cereal and Milk Pancakes from Palatable Pastime
• Colourful Fruit Salad Pudding  from Sneha’s Recipe
• Crispy Rainbow Egg Rolls from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• French Bean Watermelon Radish Salad from Food Lust People Love
• Moroccan Rainbow Carrot Salad from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Naturally Dyed Rainbow Pasta  from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Rainbow Roasted Vegetables from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Tomato, Cucumber, and Red Onion Salad with Latholemono Dressing from Karen’s Kitchen Stories

Rainbow Pasta

Inspired by Salty Seattle

Red: 1 beet, roasted and pureed with 2 tablespoons water

Orange: 1 red bell pepper, roasted + 1 roasted carrot, pureed

Yellow: 1 yellow bell pepper, roasted + ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder, pureed

Green: ½ cup spinach, steamed and pureed with 2 tablespoons water

Blue: Blue Butterfly Pea Flower steeped in water and strained

1 cup flour

1 egg

2-3 tablespoons veggie puree from above

Place the flour in a food processor fitted with a dough blade.  In a small bowl, lightly whisk the egg and puree of choice.  Pour the egg mixture into the food processor while it is running.  Allow the mixture to come together, then stop the food processor and turn out onto the counter to knead (add more flour while kneading if the dough is too sticky).  Once the dough is smooth, wrap in plastic wrap and set aside to rest for 20 minutes.

Repeat the same process for additional pasta colors.

After the dough is rested, run it through a pasta roller according to manufacturer instructions.    I rolled my dough balls through the widest setting 3 times (folding in thirds between each roll), then continued rolling to the second from thinnest setting.  Finally, I used the fettuccine cutter to cut the pasta.

To cook, boil salted water in a large stock pot.  Cook the pasta 4-5 minutes or until al dente. Drain and serve.

I added butter, half and half, and parmesan cheese to my pasta prior to serving.