Homemade mustard from seed: soaked a day, never cooked, matured a week
Yellow and brown mustard seeds soaked for a day in vinegar and water, ground and seasoned with honey, salt and sugar. This mustard is never cooked: the heat only appears once the broken seed meets water, and it is destroyed by high temperature. On day one it bites and tastes bitter; after a week in the jar it mellows and starts to taste right. Three small jars — handy as presents too.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Seeds soaking 1440 min
- Grinding 15 min
- Jars 10 min
- Maturing 4320 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMeasure and rinse the seeds
Measure 50 g yellow and 50 g brown mustard seeds, tip them into a fine sieve and rinse under cold water to lose the dust. The ratio decides the character: yellow is mild and faintly bitter, brown is sharp and goes straight up the nose.
Ingredients: 100 g yellow and brown mustard seeds · 150 ml cider or wine vinegar · 100 ml water · 2 tbsp honey · 1 tbsp sugar · 1½ tsp salt · 1 tbsp mustard powder
TipWant a gentle, table-style mustard? Take 80 g yellow to 20 g brown. Want the Polish sarepska that bites? Reverse it. All brown makes the kind of mustard that brings tears to your eyes.
Half and half: mild yellow, sharp brownCover with vinegar and water for a day
Tip the seeds into a jar, pour over the vinegar and cooled boiled water, stir and close. Leave at room temperature 24 hours. The seeds swell and absorb nearly all the liquid; if any sit above the surface after a few hours, add a spoon of water.
TipThe day is a condition, not a margin. The hard seed coat has to hydrate before the blade has anything to break; a dry seed shatters into sand that stays gritty and bitter in the finished mustard.
A day in vinegar and water, the seeds swellGrind cold
Put the soaked seeds and all their liquid into a jug blender or food processor and grind in pulses for 2–3 minutes, until about half the seeds break down into a paste and the rest stay whole. Pause every 30 seconds and scrape the sides down.
TipThe pauses are not just for scraping but above all to stop the mass warming up. Mustard heat is a volatile oil that forms only once the seed is broken and breaks down in warmth. A paste warmed by friction loses some of its power before it reaches the jar, and a boiled one loses nearly all of it. That is why this mustard is never cooked.
Pulsed, half the seeds broken, half wholeSeason
Stir in the honey, sugar, salt and, if you want it sharper, the mustard powder. Check the texture: the paste should be as thick as finished mustard; if it is too thick, add water a spoon at a time.
TipDon't judge the flavour at this stage and don't chase it with salt. Freshly ground mustard seed is aggressively bitter and hot; only a few days in the jar draw that bitterness out. Season to the proportions, not to the impression.
Honey, sugar, salt, powder if you want heatFill the jars
Scald and dry three 150 ml jars and their lids. Spoon in the mustard, pressing down so no air pockets remain, and leave 1 cm of headroom. Screw the lids on.
Scalded jars, pressed down with a teaspoonLeave it a week
Keep in a cool dark place 3 to 7 days before opening. Vinegar and time pull the bitterness out and the flavour settles. After that keep it in the fridge, ideally for up to 3 months; it grows milder as it goes, so if you like it fierce, eat it in the first month.
Three to seven days in the cool, then open
Before you start
Honey mustard for poultry
Double the honey to 4 spoons and cut the vinegar to 120 ml. You get a sweet, thick mustard for wings, for glazing pork loin and for salad dressings.
Wholegrain, French style
Grind for only 1 minute, leaving three-quarters of the seeds whole, and use white wine vinegar. That gives you mustard à l'ancienne for cheese and cold cuts.
It's bitter and burning
It is simply too young. Close the jar and give it another 3–4 days before you try to rescue it with sugar. If it still bites after a week, stir a spoon of honey into each jar.