[angular] How to set the color of an icon in Angular Material?

I have this, which I would assume to work, but doesn't:

<mat-icon color="white">home</mat-icon>

Then, I also have:

<button mat-raised-button color="accent" type="submit"
 [disabled]="!recipientForm.form.valid">
    <mat-icon color="white">save</mat-icon>SAVE
</button>

This code snippet, for some reason, does work (shows the icon as white).

How do I get the lone mat-icon to show up as white using the color attribute? (I can easily just add a white class, but I want to understand this)

In the component.css or app.css add Icon Color styles

.material-icons.color_green { color: #00FF00; }
.material-icons.color_white { color: #FFFFFF; }

In the component.html set the icon class

<mat-icon class="material-icons color_green">games</mat-icon>
<mat-icon class="material-icons color_white">cloud</mat-icon>

ng build

Here's a move that I'm using to set the color dynamically, it defaults to primary theme if the variable is undefined.

in your component define your color

  /**Sets the button colors - Defaults to primary them color */
  @Input('buttonsColor') _buttonsColor: string

in your style (sass here) - this forces the icon to use the color of it's container

.mat-custom{
  .mat-icon, .mat-icon-button{
     color:inherit !important;
  }  
}

in your html surround your button with a div

        <div [class.mat-custom]="!!_buttonsColor" [style.color]="_buttonsColor"> 
            <button mat-icon-button (click)="doSomething()">
                <mat-icon [svgIcon]="'refresh'" color="primary"></mat-icon>
            </button>
        </div>

Since for some reason white isn't available for selection, I have found that mat-palette($mat-grey, 50) was close enough to white, for my needs at least.

color="white" is not a known attribute to Angular Material.

color attribute can changed to primary, accent, and warn. as said in this doc

your icon inside button works because its parent class button has css class of color:white, or may be your color="accent" is white. check the developer tools to find it.

By default, icons will use the current font color

<mat-icon style="-webkit-text-fill-color:blue">face</mat-icon>

Or simply

add to your element

[ngStyle]="{'color': myVariableColor}"

eg

<mat-icon [ngStyle]="{'color': myVariableColor}">{{ getActivityIcon() }}</mat-icon>

Where color can be defined at another component etc