DIY Honey-Mustard Seasoning Powder

The easiest way to make a honey-mustard flavored condiment is to mix mustard with honey. But the result is wet and sticky, and that's a problem if you want to use it as a seasoning mix on foods without adding moisture. This is helpful for dry snack foods like popcorn, chips, pretzels, and nuts, but it's also versatile as a dry-rub or seasoning garnish—think deviled eggs dusted with honey-mustard powder, or saucy honey-mustard chicken wings lightly coated with the powder for a punch of even more intense honey-mustard flavor. It'd also be great showered onto a fresh batch of french fries, worked into a biscuit dough, or as the finishing touch on buttery corn on the cob.

Buying the ingredients to make a dry honey-mustard powder requires placing some online orders, since several of the ingredients are hard to find in most stores, but once you've cleared that small inconvenience, the possibilities are endless for having honey-mustard flavor on all sorts of foods.

Here's the thing, though—honey-mustard powder is not as simple as mixing together granulated honey and dry mustard powder. I tried that and it's awful. The dry mustard is pungent and sharp, the honey powder doing little to offset it. But just as problematic is the fact that those two ingredients when combined on their own are missing flavor. It just doesn't taste like honey-mustard, even though it's literally honey and mustard.

To figure out what might push a homemade powder in the right direction, I did what any lazy person would: I looked at the ingredient list on a bag of Snyder's honey-mustard pretzels, which to me is the most iconic of all honey-mustard snack foods. That revealed some flavoring clues: onion powder, citric acid, vinegar powder, whey, and more.

This was enough information to set on on the right path. My own mix doesn't include every last ingredient that Snyder's uses, but it mirrors the critical elements. Here's what I call for and why:

• Granulated Honey or Honey Powder: This is honey in a crystalized form, much like sugar. Try to find a product that is primarily honey, though most products also contain sugar. Its flavor isn't as strong as pure liquid honey, so you need to use a hefty dose of it relative to the other ingredients to get enough of a honey flavor in the mix. Honey powder tends to be finer, while granulated honey tends to come in slightly larger granules, though either works.
• Dry Mustard: A much more common ingredient you may have in your pantry already. Beware—it can be quite pungent and sharp, and lacks the complexity of wet mustards, since those tend to also have ingredients like vinegar, spices, and other flavorings. We'll fix that with some of the other ingredients in the mix.
• Buttermilk Powder: Even though mustard doesn't typically contain any dairy, the buttermilk powder here plays an important role, adding a creamy foundation that evokes the saucy qualities of a honey-mustard paste even though there's no moisture in sight. It also serves a useful function in cutting some of the dry mustard's pungency. In the Snyder's pretzels, they use whey powder, not buttermilk, but I like the buttermilk powder here for its added dose of subtle lactic tang; the result is a more complex acidity than the citric acid alone, which is helpful given I don't call for vinegar powder (more on that in the next bullet point).
• Citric Acid: If you look at the Snyder's ingredient list, you'll see they use both vinegar powder and citric acid (also in a powdered form). I'm only calling for citric acid here, since it feels a little ridiculous to ask home cooks to load their pantry with not one but two crystallized acids, and I think citric acid is the more versatile of the two overall. It's a cool ingredient that's worth having anyway—you can use it to add a fairly neutral acidity to all sorts of foods without diluting them with liquid. And while the flavor of citric acid is different from the acetic acid that contributes to the smell and flavor of vinegar, in this powdered, purified form citric acid is more than close enough, lacking any kind of citrus or lemony notes one might expect (those really come from the oils in the fruit's peel and not from the citric acid in the juice).
• Onion Powder: This seasoning that adds a more full-flavored experience; it's helpful here because mustards often contain flavorings like onion or garlic powder, so this pushed the dry mix closer to a true "mustard" flavor than dry mustard alone is able to do.
  
• Turmeric: This is optional as it's primarily to boost the yellow color of the mixture. That isn't to say that turmeric doesn't also add flavor—it does, but it's less about its flavor here and more about that enhanced mustard yellow. It's not shown in the photos here; add it if you have it, or skip it.

Once you mix all these ingredients together, your dry honey-mustard seasoning mix is ready to use. Make as much or as little as you like, feel free to tweak the proportions to your own tastes, and don't worry too much about shelf life: Everything in this is very shelf-stable, and the worst that can happen over time is that the ingredients clump from humidity, or flavors fade.

In a small mixing bowl, stir together granulated honey, mustard powder, buttermilk powder, salt, onion powder, turmeric (if using), and citric acid until thoroughly combined. Taste and feel free to adjust as desired to meet your flavor-balance preference. Use as desired.

Make-Ahead and Storage

The dry honey-mustard mixture can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 month (and probably a lot longer, though flavor may start to fade).