A honey-mustard glaze is a grand adornment for chicken, ham, ribs, salmon and perhaps your burger, if not steak. How do you make a good glaze? Let’s google “honey mustard glaze” and see what happens.
Oh, 1,010,000 results. This could take some time.
Actually, I’ve spent a little time, comparing recipes and discovering tons of imaginative ideas. One thing we know: the recipe has to have honey and mustard. But even there, recipe ideas vary dramatically: the same amount of each, 2 or 3 or 5 times more mustard than honey, or just the reverse with more honey than mustard.
And then come the “other” things. Here’s a sample of items people include, and you probably do need at least some additional fluid to achieve glaze consistency:
- Olive oil
- Melted butter
- Water
- Brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Soy sauce
- Garlic paste
- Garlic powder
- Finely diced garlic
- Apple cider vinegar
- Tomato puree
- Mustard seeds
- Chili powder
- Lemon juice or zest
- Lime juice or zest
- Herbs
- Diced onion or scallions
Lost? Don’t be. The recipe below makes an excellent, slightly sweet, slightly sour glaze. You can adjust the proportions to your liking and you can add more of these suggested optional ingredients.
Or you can go down your own path with an entire different array of components. You cannot be “wrong” but I do suggest you keep using your finger — okay tasting spoons to be sanitary — and taste test along the way. You cannot “unzest” or “unjuice” or “unchili” very easily.
You just might want to write down your steps and ingredients, too. As you let your imagination and saliva flow, you’ll tell yourself that you will remember what you’ve done. You may not. If you are older than 39, you really want a pad of paper and pen on the countertop. What you create today can be just the starting point for tomorrow.
Be sure to note what kind of honey and what kind of mustard you use. Honey and mustards come in a bounty of flavors and textures. Already you have decisions to make and flavor options to consider.
And how to use the glaze? You can coat your protein before you begin to cook, perhaps even marinating for an hour or so, or you can wait until the meat is almost done, or you coat/marinade and then baste for the duration of the cooking time. And you may want to reserve some glaze for use at the table. The table glaze should not have any contamination from a brush that was applying glaze to raw protein, so divide up the glaze before application is made to your meat.
Which implies this: make lots of glaze. Like a cup or more. Just as you see here.
Basic Honey Mustard Glaze
Yield: 1 ½ cups
Ingredients:
- ½ cup honey of your choice
- ½ cup mustard of your choice
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1 garlic clove, finely diced
- Olive oil, as needed
Preparation:
Place all the ingredients in a bowl and slowly whisk to mix. Increase the whisking speed to produce a smooth mixture. If necessary, you can add some additional liquid here: more vinegar or some oil to achieve the liquidity you prefer.
It’s a glaze so it should be sticky and viscous.
Source: Brian O’Rourke