Buy at AmazonYou can make honey mustard by stirring together your favorite honey and mustard, and it will be delicious. But you may want to buy it instead. The best versions have a unique piquancy and complexity that’s hard to replicate at home with just two ingredients. Plus, if you buy it, you’ll always have honey mustard at the ready whenever you want a dipping sauce or to add a sweet-spicy kick to a sandwich. We purchased five honey mustards and tried them plain and with chicken nuggets.
We sampled the honey mustards plain and with chicken nuggets.
Comparing Consistency
We were surprised by how much the texture and appearance of the mustards differed. Two are made with whole mustard seeds, which the manufacturers grind to their desired consistency. One of these mustards was very smooth and uniform in texture, similar to a typical yellow or Dijon mustard. The other was coarsely ground, with big bits of mustard seed that added a little textural contrast, and thin enough to drizzle over food.
Most of the mustard available in American supermarkets is made with brown or yellow mustard seeds. Manufacturers can also use mustard flour, a finely ground powder that results in a supersmooth condiment.
The other three mustards start with mustard flour (which appears on one honey mustard's label as "ground mustard seeds"), a fine powder made by grinding mustard seeds and removing the husks. Two of these were especially thick and satiny, delightfully sticky, and dark gold or amber. The third, which contained egg yolks and butter, was pale yellow and not quite as thick. The Michigan-based manufacturer of this mustard told us these ingredients and texture are typical of cream-style mustards once common in the Upper Great Lakes region. Although we liked every product we tried, we especially enjoyed the ultrasmooth, silky mustards made with mustard flour.
Honey Mustard Should Be Sweet and Spicy
True to their names, every mustard we tried contained some amount of honey. Four of the mustards contained brown sugar or granulated sugar as sweeteners as well. Interestingly, the amount of sugar per serving didn’t indicate how sweet the mustards tasted. Instead, it was about balance. One mustard was pleasantly “floral” but overall tasted “too sweet” for many tasters. The rest had a little acidity and gentle heat that evened out the sweetness. Our favorites had “bite” and “lingering sharpness” that kept tasters going back.
The Best Honey Mustard: Woeber’s Simply Supreme Honey Mustard
We enjoyed all the honey mustards we tried but had some favorites. Our top scorers are made with mustard flour and have impressively rich, ultrathick consistencies. Woeber's Simply Supreme Honey Mustard eked out the top spot. It has just the right amount of sweetness and “the perfect sharpness and hint of acidity” that tasters loved.
- Taste five products, priced from about $2.00 to about $19.00 (about $0.10 to about $2.50 per ounce), purchased online and at Boston-area retailers
- Taste plain
- Taste with chicken nuggets
- Samples were randomized and assigned three-digit codes to prevent bias
- Combines piquant heat and gentle sweetness
- Thick, creamy texture
