How to Make Rainbow Pasta (Recipe) - Vega Recepten (2024)

Making pasta is always a good idea! Who wouldn’t be happy with a nice plate of spaghetti aglio olio, spaghetti bolognese or spaghetti carbonara? Anyhow, you can make us very happy with these dishes; the veggie versions, of course! But you can make your plate of spaghetti even more fun with this rainbow pasta recipe.

Pasta never looked this fun. This pasta recipe will guaranteed be a hot topic, for young and old! And we will tell you how to make it.

With our rainbow recipes we try to make the world a little more colorful and accepting, from the kitchen! Will you help? Share your creations through #rainbowrecipes.

Rainbow pasta ingredients

Which ingredients do you need for this rainbow pasta recipe? 450 gram (15.8 oz) spaghetti (or other pasta) and red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple food coloring. Do you only have red, yellow and blue? Make orange by mixing red and yellow. Green from yellow and blue. And purple by mixing red and blue. Gel food coloring makes for the most vibrant colors, but you can also use liquid food coloring.

Another option is to use homemade natural food coloring! It’s easier and faster to use artificial food coloring. But natural food coloring is healthier! If you want to make homemade food coloring, you need: 600 gram (21 oz) red cabbage, 5 red beets, 3 tablespoons turmeric, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and water. Read below how you you make red, oranje, green, blue, and purple natural food colors.

How to Make Natural Food Coloring

For yellow, you boil 750 milliliter (3 cups) water + 3 tablespoons turmeric for a few minutes, until it has a deep yellow color.

Boil 5 chopped red beets in 500 milliliter (2 cups) water for 5-10 minutes, until the the water has a deep red color. Or simply juice the red beets. You can also use red beet juice from a boiled beets package.

For purple, you boil 750 milliliter (3 cups) water with 600 gram (21 oz) red cabbage. Boil for a few minutes, until the water has a deep purple color. Strain and collect the colored water. Or simply juice the red cabbage.

Did the water turn blue? Keep ⅔ parts of the blue water apart, and add lemon juice to the other part.

We make blue by mixing ⅔ parts purple liquid with ½ teaspoon baking soda. From this blue liquid, we use half in another pot/on another plate. With a spoon, we will add yellow liquid to half of the blue liquid. Spoon little by little, until you mixed the perfect green.

Take ½ of the leftover yellow liquid and add red liquid (with a spoon) until you like the orange color.

And that’s how you can make natural rainbow food coloring! It is a bit of work, but you will have much healthier food coloring!

How to Make Rainbow Pasta?

For rainbow pasta, you first cook the pasta and mix it with the food coloring after. Boil the pasta according to the packaging, but cook it 1-2 minutes shorter than usually.

Strain the pasta and rinse with cold water, to stop the cooking process. Otherwise the coloring won’t work.

Divide the food coloring over 6 sealable food container, ziploc bags, or jars. We use jars, but you can use a container or ziploc bag. As long as you can seal it.

For the artificial coloring: add 20 drops liquid coloring or ½ teaspoon gel coloring to each jar. Add 2 tablespoons water to each jar. That’s how we dilute the coloring. The pasta will absorbs a lot of the water + color.

If you use natural food coloring, you use the amount you made.

Divide the pasta over the 6 jars and shake (or knead if you use a ziploc bag) to mix the pasta with the colors. Let the pasta soak in artificial coloring for at least 5 minutes, and in natural coloring for at least 30 minutes.

After soaking the pasta, strain and rinse (for any leftover coloring to rinse away). You can then reheat the pasta and use in your pasta recipe. We made a delicious spaghetti alio olio, rainbow edition and share the recipe below! But you can also create another pasta dish.

How to Make Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Making spaghetti aglio olie is very easy. You already made the spaghetti, now you need 6 cloves of garlic, 100 milliliter (little less than ½ cup) olive oil (extra vierge) and 1 or 2 chili pepper(s). If you like parsley, you can add a handful of chopped parsley.

Chop the garlic and chili pepper. Remove the seeds if you don’t like spicy, but leave them if you do. Fry the garlic and chili pepper with the olive oil. Add the rainbow pasta. And fry over low heat until the pasta is heated. Top with parsley. Adding parmazan chees or nutritional yeast is a great option too!

Cheese Clouds

Optional, but very fun is to make cheese clouds. Because you already made a rainbow, why not make clouds too? You only need grated cheese and an oven.

Make 8 circles of grated cheeted on a baking tray with parchment paper. Bake on 180 °C (356 °F) in 5 minutes golden brown. Let them cool/harden for 2 minutes before removing them from the baking tray. And there you have your tasty cheese clouds.

Rainbow Recipes

Check out more rainbow recipes on our website! We create 30 recipes, a recipe for every day of Pride Month. Together, we can make the world more colorful and accepting, from the kitchen. Help and share your creations through #rainbowrecipes!

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