I’ve been wanting to make homemade mustard for some time, ever since I learned that you can make it with about five ingredients and a whisk. Prior to that time, when I lived in the mustard dark-ages, I thought mustard was a complex web of ingredients, built following a secret recipe, and that it was folly to even to contemplate that a mere mortal such as myself could create that beautiful yellow condiment available in grocery stores the world over.

And yet.

The theme for June is reducing packaging, and making your own mustard is a really easy way to do so, and also to feel pretty damn good about yourself and your kitchen skills with really very little labour or cost. And what would summer be without a good mustard-based salad dressing, or a generous dollop of mustard on a vegan sausage or sandwich, or that secret ingredient in your tangy potato salad? Plus, the beauty of homemade mustard is that you can customize it and make really gourmet flavours – herbed thyme mustard, maple mustard, garlic mustard, and so on.

There are a couple of ways to make mustard: one involves soaking and then crushing up mustard seeds with some other ingredients, resulting in a beautifully rustic ‘stone-ground’ kind of mustard. The other way involves stirring together dry mustard powder (essentially ground up mustard seeds) with apple cider vinegar, a few other spices, your sweetener of choice, and boom. Mustard.

Before I leave you with the recipe, take care to note the golden rule of mustard: mustard mellows with time. Easy enough, right? Slap freshly made mustard on your sandwich after day one and you can expect to have your sinuses clean as a whistle. It’s got that horseradishy “whoosh” of heat. For those of you for whom the answer to “what kind of salsa do you want?” is always “mild, please,” give this mustard a few days or two weeks to mellow.  You can also “can” mustard via a boiling water bath if you want it to last ages, but otherwise, just store in a beautiful airtight jar and it should last a goodly while – at least one month, or up to six months if you’ve sterilized your glass jars first (i.e boiled in water for 10 minutes). I’ve seen several recipes that suggest mustard can be stored at room temperature, but I say, for safety sake, go with the fridge.

So, there you have it! A generous half cup of organic mustard powder cost me about $2 – plus the vinegar and maple syrup, this batch might have cost me $3.50 or $4. So about on par with what you’d pay at the grocery store, perhaps, but you have complete control over the quality and organic-ness of the ingredients and you also get the bragging power of having made it yourself. And bonus: no mustard jar to throw out or recycle at the end.

Homemade Sweet & Tangy Maple Mustard

• Author: Emily Joldersma, R.H.N.
• Recipe Notes: vegan, gluten-free, oil-free, soy-free, naturally-sweetened
• Yield: 1/2 to 2/3 cups mustard

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dry mustard (also called ground mustard)
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp turmeric (for colour)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• generous pinch each: ground black pepper and garlic powder
• if you’re feeling adventurous: a pinch of smoked paprika

Instructions:

1. Whisk together all ingredients (in a glass or non-reactive bowl).
2. Store in a (glass) jar.
3. Feel like a pioneer.
4. Plan out several recipes that use mustard.

NOTE: I mentioned this above, but it is worth repeating: numerous recipes I consulted said that if you want to keep your mustard for longer than one month in the fridge, it is worthwhile to sterilize your glass jars first. Also, if you want shelf-stable mustard, and want to process the jars in a water bath, consult a website with mustard canning expertise, like Food in Jars.

© Eat Well, Live Vibrantly