Gluten Free Food Coloring Brands and Homemade

Gluten Free Food Coloring

Food coloring is usually gluten free, but after reading an article about one person having a gluten reaction to a yellow food coloring that was confirmed to contain gluten, I always purchase brands labeled or sold as gluten free.

Food coloring comes in a few varieties such as powdered, liquid, and gel/paste. I don’t use any commercial brand of powdered coloring, but I explain all of the others available that I know are gluten free and safe for anyone to use. I even explain how to make your own at home.

Homemade Food Coloring

For Easter, you can skip the food coloring and wrap eggs in ribbons of yellow or red onion skin, tissue paper, and more. For St. Patrick’s Day, I often use food coloring for cookies, frosting, and other desserts. Whether the coloring is in the form of gel, liquid, or a food ingredient, I have you covered.

 

Gel: While you can use any gluten free food coloring you desire, I prefer to use gel-based colors. AmeriColor is the leading brand and is not only gluten-free, but their manufacturing facility is free of animal products, peanuts, and tree nuts. They manufacture their products which contain other allergens on separate lines. All of their products are gluten-free. Unfortunately, I have never seen AmeriColor products in stores, just online. You can purchase them on Amazon or the AmeriColor website.

 

Liquid: For liquid, I use McCormick which is easily found in most grocery stores.

 

Natural: While Seelecttea brand of natural food coloring is not usually heat-stable (for baking in the oven or on the stove), they work well in cold food such as milkshakes and icing/frosting. They are Kosher, Gluten Free, Vegan, and Feingold Diet accepted.

 

Natural Homemade

You can use many natural foods to make your own food coloring at home.

Green: Cook 10 ounces of frozen spinach in 1 cup of water, covered, for about 15 minutes. Allow half of the water to evaporate. Puree both the water and the spinach in a blender, allowing the steam to escape or the spinach and water to cool before blending. Use it to color food. However, you’ll need much more compared to commercial brands. It does not make your food taste like spinach, especially desserts. You can also use avocado to color shakes, and even mashed potatoes.

Yellow: Add a very tiny bit of turmeric spice to food to make it yellow. I use this a lot in cakes.

Red: Use beet juice. I usually use canned beet juice, but if you’re boiling fresh, peel the beets first, and cook the beet juice down until it is super condensed. They also sell red beet powder on Amazon.

Purple: You can follow the instruction for the green spinach but use purple cabbage.

Orange: Boil finely chopped carrots in water. Remove the carrots. (I usually add them to my dogs’ food.) Reduce the carrot water until it darker in color.

These are just a few ideas. I’m sure you can come up with your own ideas.

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