Chicken in honey-mustard marinade is not only hearty and tasty, but also an appetizing-looking dish that is not ashamed to be put even on a festive table. It is not for nothing that the recipe has received another name among the people - "Golden Bird" - thanks to the ruddy crust, piquant sweetish taste of meat and the bright color of both the whole carcass of the broiler chicken, and pieces - thighs, wings, drumsticks. The secret of the popular recipe is to use two simple ingredients to marinate chicken - sweet honey and aromatic mustard.
A mustard-honey marinating mixture is considered universal, as it is suitable for all types of meat. It is these ingredients that give the finished dish a sweet-spicy, very piquant aftertaste. However, only chicken in such a marinade (or sauce, as some cooks call it) turns out to be especially tender, appetizing and tasty, after baking it becomes covered with a golden crust.
You can cook a delicious chicken with honey and mustard sauce in different ways: bake in the oven, fry in a pan, cook in a slow cooker, microwave. In all cases, the dish will turn out to be incomparable, will receive praise from households and guests.
Requirements for the main ingredients
In order for chicken in honey-mustard sauce to turn out juicy, moderately spicy, not too sweet or toasty, you should be guided by the following principles for choosing products for preparing an appetizing dish.
- Hen. You can use both the whole carcass and half for the recipe. Chicken thighs, drumsticks, wings, shashlik pieces, breast, boneless fillets are prepared even faster. Before cooking, the carcass or its parts must be washed, dried on a plate, sliced in portions if necessary. Whether or not to remove the skin depends on the preferences of the household, but it is she who is covered with a golden crust during the baking process.
- Mustard. The recipe uses both homemade and commercial mustard, as long as it is not too hot. You can also take Dijon - in grains, most often it is with a granular marinade that it turns out to be especially piquant and aromatic. The amount of this ingredient can be varied to your liking by slightly altering the recipe.
- Honey. The ideal recipe is natural honey from the apiary, fresh and runny. In the absence of such a product, the purchased one will do, the main thing is that it is not candied. In this case, it must be melted in a water bath. Replacing honey with sugar is not allowed, the baked chicken will taste completely different from this.
Adding spices, seasonings
Additional ingredients such as spices and seasonings give the dish a delicate aroma and piquant aftertaste. The choice of herbs often depends on the preferences of the cook, so each housewife will have her own set, often quite unique in composition. A typical recipe for chicken in a honey mustard marinade includes components such as:
- finely chopped or pressed garlic;
- sweet and sour adjika (or ketchup);
- soy sauce;
- purchased dry mix of poultry seasonings;
- coriander powder;
- parsley, basil;
- lemon juice;
- salt;
- oregano, thyme.
Often, the choice of seasoning depends on how the chicken is cooked. When baking, the pieces can be greased with mustard-honey sauce, stuffed with whole garlic, sprinkled with herbs. When cooking in a microwave or multicooker, it is easier to pour the thighs or wings with liquid marinade, greasing it with garlic gruel and seasoning with pepper. It is recommended to use fresh herbs already when transferring the finished chicken to the plate, so it will give the dish more flavor.
Food preparation and pickling
First, prepare the chicken for baking. If you need a whole carcass, it is enough to clean and wash it. However, it is easier to use either half of a broiler chicken carcass, or drumsticks, legs, chicken legs, wings with skin purchased on a substrate. They cook much faster, the meat on the pieces is more tender, completely saturated with marinade.
The process of marinating chicken consists of several stages.
- Peel the garlic, cut into slices and stuff the whole carcass with them, inserting into small slots. You can chop, grind garlic cloves, coat the meat with aromatic gruel.
- Melt the candied honey in a water bath, pour into a glass bowl. Add vegetable oil, mustard, soy sauce, if desired, add mustard seeds. Stir the ingredients with a spoon until smooth. You can also use mayonnaise, ketchup for pickling, if you like this flavor combination with sweet honey.
- Add spices, dry herbs.
- Soak the chicken or coat the wings, chicken thighs, breast with marinade, put all the pieces in a bowl, close the lid.
- Leave to marinate in honey dressing with mustard and spices for 1-3 hours.
The classic recipe for baking in the oven
This simple recipe involves using a minimum of food and baking in the oven on a baking sheet. You can take chicken drumsticks or thighs on a substrate, loose legs.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of chicken;
- 25 g homemade or commercial mustard;
- 20 g of liquid honey;
- a teaspoon of salt;
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.
How to do
- Divide the whole chicken into parts, portioned pieces - just take out of the package.
- Melt the candied honey in a water bath.
- Make a honey mustard marinade by mixing 2 ingredients with salt.
- Coat all the pieces with the mixture, leave the chicken to marinate for 40 minutes.
- Grease a baking sheet with oil (you can cover it with foil), lay out the legs and or thighs, bake at 180 degrees.
- After 40 minutes, turn off the oven timer, remove the baking sheet.
Juicy Chicken Up The Sleeve Recipe
This recipe involves using a whole gutted carcass and roasting in the sleeve. The dish will become a decoration not only for everyday, but also for a festive table.
Ingredients:
- gutted carcass (weighing about 1.5 kg);
- 2 tablespoons of liquid honey;
- 2 tablespoons French mustard
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- 2 tablespoons of dry chicken seasoning (you can take paprika, ground pepper);
- 1 tablespoon salt
- half a lemon.
How to do
- Mix mustard, honey, juice squeezed from half a lemon, seasoning and chopped garlic cloves for honey-mustard marinade.
- Coat the washed carcass outside and inside with the resulting mixture.
- Marinate the chicken in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours, placing it in a tightly tied bag.
- Place the marinated carcass in a roasting sleeve, watering with the remnants of the marinade, tie a bag, make 3-4 punctures.
- Transfer the carcass to a baking sheet, bake in the oven for 1.5 hours at 180 degrees.
- Expand the bag, pour the marinade over the carcass, bake for another 20 minutes.
Recipe for spicy and fragrant wings
Chicken marinated in honey-mustard sauce can be not only spicy, but also spicy, aromatic, fried. This is achieved by adding spices, onions and ketchup to the marinade for the wings or drumsticks.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of small legs or wings;
- 3 tablespoons of honey;
- 3 tablespoons of mustard;
- 3 tablespoons of ketchup
- 2 onions;
- salt;
- spices, herbs.
How to do
- Peel the onions, chop, mash, so that the juice stands out. Divide in half.
- Mix all the ingredients except the onion, pour the honey-mustard sauce over the wings.
- Pour half of the onion into the container, level, transfer the wings. Sprinkle with the rest of the onion on top.
- Cover with a lid or plastic wrap, leave to marinate for about an hour.
- Remove the onion, it was needed only for the spicy juice and smell, transfer the wings with sauce to the multicooker bowl.
- Cook for 40 minutes in Bake mode. You can also bake the wings in the oven, setting 180 degrees for 40 minutes.
You can add soy sauce and hot spices, aromatic dried and fresh herbs, adjika to any recipe. Instead of drumsticks and wings, it's also a good idea to take chicken skewers, marinate them in a mixture of honey, mustard and garlic with onions. The meat will turn out no worse than pork, it will remain juicy and tender during frying.
