How to make coloured rice

Coloured food is so fun to play with. It’s great for creating scenes or laying out in nice rainbow stripes before your little one can come along and mess it all up.

Rice is one of my favourites but also the one I hate the most! The rice grains are so small they seem to get everywhere, especially when Artie gets to the phase of her play when she wants to throw everything on the floor. I seem to find them for weeks after.

Rice is fun to play with dyed or undyed. We have a jar of undyed rice that I’ve been using for months now. More recently because I wanted to create a bee scene for our play I dyed a whole load up. It’s so easy to do!

First of all, choose your rice or chickpeas or anything else you want to colour. You can use cooked or uncooked rice, cooked or uncooked pasta, dried chickpeas, dried lentils or anything else that's similar.

When I colour cooked pasta or rice I add a bit of vegetable oil so that they don't stick together as much. I also don't leave much time for them to dry as the dye will probably transfer a bit when it's being played with anyway and also because as it's fresh I want it to be used as quickly as possible. You could put it in the fridge overnight if you want to though. 

I chose long grain white rice for this example, but any should work that is light coloured. Gel food colouring is much easier and more effective to use but you can use liquid food colouring. You may need to use a lot more liquid colouring and the coverage might not be as good.

Whatever you choose to colour with food colouring make sure it’s safe according to the age of your baby. If your baby likes to put their toys and everything in their mouth then ensure what you choose is not a choking hazard and is edible. For example you may choose to use rice over chickpeas if it’s likely they will try to eat it. Always supervise your child when they’re playing.

Separate the rice into different bowls or food bags. I prefer to use bowls because they’re easy to clean and are less wasteful. I actually ended up just using one bowl and washing it each time as it was quicker.

You will need a few colours of food colouring. There are loads of different food colouring brands. I really like Wilton’s gel food colouring* and bought a pack of 8. The colours come out really well and you don’t need much but any food colouring gel will do.

Take a small amount of food colouring and add it to a small bowl. You can then add a little bit of white vinegar and mix it all together. Some people use a squirt of hand sanitiser but I prefer to use as many edible ingredients as I can.

Once your gel is uniform add it to the bowl or bag of rice. Now it’s just a case of mixing the food colouring with the rice. If you have it all in a bag, keep shaking and squishing it around until it looks fully covered. If you’re using a bowl just keep using your spoon to mix it up. You may need to add more food colouring if it doesn’t all get coloured. Try to start with less and add more rather than the other way around. This will help it to dry faster.

Once you’re happy with your coverage all you need to do is pour out your rice onto a tray. If you don’t have a tray or you need more drying space you can put down cling film or tin foil on your table and use that. Make sure you have a single layer or it may not dry out properly.

I try to leave my coloured food overnight to dry just so I can be sure. Sometimes you might find it doesn’t dry out properly - i’ve found this with chickpeas in the past. In these situations I’ve done one of two things: either wash in water and have a paler palette. Or wash and then cover with water based acrylic paint instead.

Here’s a handy list summarising what you need.

What you need:

• Rice/chickpeas or whatever else you want to colour

• Food colouring gel or water based acrylic paint

• White vinegar or hand sanitiser

• Spoon and bowl or food bag

• Trays for drying

That’s it! Now you can make beautiful art or place them out in a rainbow ready for playing.

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