Synthetic biology has opened a new dimension for the future of agriculture, where crops can be engineered with new and improved traits. The nutritional value of crops is one such trait that is of primary importance to be improved. Carotenoids are natural antioxidant pigments essential to human health and the main source of Vitamin A. However, humans cannot produce carotenoids and need to obtain them primarily through the consumption of plant-based foods. We have developed a novel and generalizable approach that enables the synthetic conversion of chloroplasts into carotenoid-rich plastids named chromoplasts. Besides serving to study a long-standing question in plant biology (i.e., plastid differentiation), this approach lays the foundation for developing more nutritious crops.