Edible Paint: Painting Tortillas with Food Coloring & Eating Them!

Skip to Craft

We never get tired of making edible paint! With a little food coloring and water, it's so easy to turn your leftover tortillas into beautiful and edible art! We had some tortillas leftover after making our Chicken Enchiladas with Whole Wheat Tortillas and decided to put them to good use. This craft was inspired by Pink Stripey Sock's awesome craft, Make Tortilla Art!

How to make edible paint

To maker edible paint, we simply combined 1-2 drops of food coloring with a few drops of water in a small bowl. The less water we added, the more vibrant the colors turned out.

Note: This post contains affiliate links

While we stuck with water as the base of our food coloring paint, there are lots of other options. We have seen others use lemon extract, white vinegar or condensed milk as the base to their edible paint. These liquids may yield a more colorful outcome, but can also impact the taste of your final product.

Food Coloring vs Food Gel

We have tried making edible paint using both standard food coloring and gel-based food coloring. It's worth pointing out that you will get a more concentrated and brilliant color using gel food coloring. However, we happened to have some pastel food coloring in our pantry that we wanted to try out with this craft, and it came out quite nice! We just made sure not to over dilute our food coloring with water.

What Can Edible Paint be Used For?

Edible paint can be used to decorate cookies, cakes or even toast. We have also used food coloring/gel to color pasta and rice for various crafts. Check out some of the crafts we've made using food coloring.

Eat your Final Product!

At first my kids didn't want to eat their artwork. But after a little coaxing, we decided to turn our beautiful tortillas into quesadillas! We sprinkled cheese onto the non-painted side of the tortillas, folded them over, and baked them in the toaster oven for a few minutes. Surprisingly, the color held pretty well.

Learn About Tortillas

While crafting with edible paint, you and your kids might want to take a moment to learn some fun facts about tortillas:

Tortillas are thin (and usually round!) flatbreads made from wheat flour or corn.
In Spanish, tortilla means "small cake."
Corn tortillas were originally made by the Aztecs and today are featured in many Mexican dishes.
Tortillas made from corn flour or whole-wheat flour have more fiber than tortillas made from wheat flour.

Note: This post contains affiliate links

💡Overview💡

Ingredient: Tortillas

Corresponding Recipe: Chicken Enchiladas with Whole Wheat Tortillas

Skills supported: Fine motor (drawing/painting), following instructions

✂ supplies ✂

2-3 round tortillas (for painting) and 1 tortilla folded and broken into 3-4 strips (to make paintbrushes)
3-4 small, clean containers (we used espresso cups!)
3-4 colors of regular food coloring or gel-based food coloring
water
toothpicks

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

📝 instructions 📝

Consider setting up the craft before cooking so that your kids can get to work right away.

Spread round tortillas on a large, clean baking sheet or plate. Roll up another tortilla tightly and break into 2-4 pieces. These will be your paint brushes!
Pour 1-2 drops of food coloring into each container. Use a different color for each container. Add a few drops of water to each bowl (the more water, the more diluted the color will be). Use a toothpick or spoon to mix water with food coloring.
Dip your tortilla paint brushes into your containers of edible paint and paint your tortillas!