No Fry Honey Mustard Wings

Honey. Mustard. A pairing so perfect they’re like Scottie & MJ, Paul & John, Batman & Robin….Kim & Kanye (just kidding).

But seriously, honey mustard is a titan in the condiment world. It’s the ultimate up-sell of a comment. First you hear mustard and if your like a majority of folks your mind goes, “ugh gross mustard” but then you hear honey and you’re like “I LIKE SWEET THINGS!”

Now Honey Mustard, was probably inspired by the German/Bavarian sweet mustard which is sweetened by sugar, apple sauce, or honey. The idea is simple, take something bitter and gross tasting, add sugar, and voila! Tasty!

Honey Mustard is always sold as the deluxe of whatever the standard version is, if something is decent, just throw some honey mustard on it and kablamo! You got culinary gold on your hands. Try those damn Snyder’s honey mustard bits and tell me they’re not tastiest salty snack around!

Mustard is made from uhhh duh the seeds of the mustard plant. Sorry to burst the bubble of anyone who thought some sour faced mush face just creates mustard out of his own sadness. Real mustard comes from the seeds being cracked/grounded then mixed with water, lemon juice, and other ingredients to create what we know as mustard.

Mustard comes from the Anglo-Norman word mustarde which has the Latin roots of “must” and “ardens;” must in Latin meant young wine which was often used to mix the ground mustard seeds during the Roman era. Ardens means flaming or hot which probably is how the mustard tasted because raw mustard will clear your nostrils out!

The Romans are said to be the first to have toyed with the mustard plant, which makes sense because the Romans were big on cabbage since it grows all over Europe and uhh Rome was kind of the big boss of Europe back then, if you didn’t already know (sorry to spoil it for you). But wait a second cabbage – mustard, where’s the connection? Well cabbage and mustard are apart of the same plant family so mustard plants were highly prevalent in that region of the world too. The Romans used mustard to spread on their meats and other dishes. From Rome, mustard then spread to Gaul (France), where it took off in popularity. The dark ages extended to condiments too, so your lowly condiment mustard, outcast of all condiments was King.

*FUN FACT! You probably remember the ads for Grey Poupon growing up well, did you know that the name comes from Maurice Grey and Auguste Poupon. Grey had created a mustard machine but he had no money to streamline his production, enter Poupon who provided financial backing. Together they created the mustard we all know and sometimes love.

So anyways, I’ve made honey mustard wings. I used my same standard wing recipe and just coated these with delicious honey mustard sauce.

Recipe – Honey Mustard Chicken Wings

Ingredients

1 Package of Chicken Wings

2 to 3 Tbsp. of Baking Powder

For the coating:

Your favorite Honey Mustard – 1/2 Cup of it

Method

Pat the wings dry, then put wings in a big ziplock bag, coat with baking powder. Making sure they are well coated. Place on a rimmed greased baking pan skin side up, make sure the wings do not overlap but rather are packed tightly together.

Then  bake at 250F for 30 minutes on low oven rack.

Then bake at 450 for another 20 minutes on middle oven rack.

Remove it from the oven, allow it to cool a little bit.

Coat in sauce.

Enjoy.