My family loves this sweet and tangy honey mustard dressing recipe. It’s made with simple ingredients and tastes way better than store-bought.
This recipe is incredibly simple to make, and you probably already have everything you need to make it in your kitchen. I love it for salads, but this dressing has so many uses. Many of our readers use it as a marinade for chicken. It works wonders as a dressing for grain bowls and we love brushing it onto salmon before baking in the oven.
I love that this salad dressing uses real ingredients and does not call for mayonnaise. For a creamier sauce that’s perfect for dipping, see our creamy honey mustard sauce. If you are looking for a marinade, we both love this honey mustard chicken.
Key Ingredients
- Mustard: I use creamy Dijon, but whole grain or regular yellow mustard will work.
- Honey: I love using local raw honey (it tastes so good). If you’d like a honey-free option, try maple syrup!
- Apple cider vinegar: I love using apple cider vinegar with “the mother” left in the bottle (like Braggs) and find it has the best flavor.
- Olive oil: Makes our dressing silky and luxurious. It also adds flavor. Avocado oil is a good alternative.
- Fresh lemon juice: Optional, but I highly recommend it. The lemon makes the dressing pop. I add the juice from one or two lemon wedges.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Honey Mustard Dressing
Tip 1: Whisk or shake until emulsified. Just a few seconds of whisking turns the dressing into a single emulsified mixture. It is amazing what happens when you whisk the mustard with olive oil and vinegar. You can also add all of the ingredients to a mason jar and shake.
Tip 2: Make it extra creamy. As written, this is a vinaigrette-style dressing and, honestly, is pretty creamy already. For a thicker even creamier dressing, whisk in a little sour cream or plain yogurt.
Serving Suggestions
Of all the salad dressing recipes on Inspired Taste, this one is the most versatile. We love drizzling it over roasted vegetables. It’s especially good with roasted Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, sweet bell peppers, and broccoli.
You can even marinate chicken, fish, and pork in this dressing. You can also use it as a sauce for serving with pork chops or grilled chicken.
More Salad Dressing Recipes
Homemade Honey Mustard Dressing
- PREP
- TOTAL
This delicious, sweet, and tangy honey mustard dressing is easy to make and lasts up to three weeks in the fridge. Use for salads and as a dipping sauce.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
¼ cup (65g) Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons (65g) honey or more to taste
3 tablespoons (45ml) apple cider vinegar or more to taste
¼ cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, optional
¼ to ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Directions
1Combine the mustard, honey, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon salt, and the black pepper and whisk until well blended and creamy.
2Whisk in the oil, and then taste the dressing. Adjust with additional salt, vinegar, or honey. I enjoy my dressing to taste more tart, so I typically add an extra tablespoon of vinegar.
3Alternatively, add all ingredients to a medium mason jar, secure the lid, and shake until blended.
4Keep tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Honey mustard dressing lasts for 3 weeks when stored in the fridge. We love keeping it in a glass mason jar so that we can shake it before adding it to salads or using it as a dipping sauce.
- Vegan substitution: Substitute the honey for pure maple syrup.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
Made the dressing for salad with buffalo chicken on it. So much better than store bought and family loved it. Super delish.
We are so happy you enjoy the recipe 🙂
I love this sauce! I make it for dipping sauce, and a bit less honey and oil and a bit more vinegar for salad dressing. It’s SO much better than those made with mayo. My wife LOVES this…
Made it today .. for dinner party 1/31/26 Very yummy.. will taste great with the winter salad!
Put in mason jar .
So easy to make and so yummy! 😋 I was frustrated that I couldn’t find a HM dressing that wasn’t packed in plastic containers. Decided to make my own! So glad I found your recipe on my first attempt!! Thanks
Hi Jane, We are glad you found our recipe, too! Thank you for coming back and letting us know how it turned out.
I used the recipe but omitted the oil all together and added a very hot cayenne pepper…perfect! It doesn’t need all the additional fat from the oil.
I pour this dressing on chicken thighs before baking them. So fire. Thanks so much. 🙂
This is an excellent recipe. Simple ingredients for a simple taste that enhances your greens and doesn’t overpower them. I used on spinach and we loved it!
I was craving honey mustard dressing, and this was such an easy recipe! It tastes delicious!
We followed as close as we could. We unfortunately were out of dijon or stone ground mustard. We had to use regular yellow mustard. We subbed coconut vinegar for the apple cider. y sister was over and she is deathly allergic to apples. We also subbed the olive oil for coconut oil, and the regular honey for Hot Honey to make up for not having the other mustards on hand. Since there was not time to chill it for thickening we added one tablespoon of mayonnaise. This made it vegetarian not vegan. I am sure veganaise would be fine to. The end result with the coconut oil and vinegar gave it an amazing light flavor while keeping that pop desired followed up with the spice of the hot honey. Thank you for your recipe. It was a great guildline for the ingredients we had on hand. I felt you may want to try this alteration. Oh yeah we added 1/8 teaspoon more of ground pepper as well.
Absolutely wonderful dressing! Love your recipes. Do you have recipes for homemade whole wheat and white bread? Thank you so much!
This delicious recipe is so easy to make, and it doesn’t take much time. I use it for salads, and as a dipping sauce for fresh vegetables.
This has become a firm favourite!! Great recipe!!
My husband always buys store bought Honey Mustard Salad Dressing. He eats a salad every night before dinner. I finally decided to search on Google for a handmade Honey Mustard Dressing and found that your recipe outshined all of the others. It was clear that it is so much healthier (no mayonnaise, preservatives, etc.) PLUS it last up to five weeks in an airtight mason jar! I had all the ingredients!! The first time I made it, he added it to his salad. After a few bites he looked at me and said to me: “This is the BEST salad dressing you’ve ever made!” (Word for word). The first batch was gone in 3 days. Yesterday I doubled the recipe but decided to go to grocery store to upgrade the honey I had been using. I just felt it was well worth it! He will be using this not only on his salad but also on a ham we just bought for sandwiches, and also as a dipping sauce!! Thank you so much for sharing your simple yet super delicious recipe for ALL of your unseen fans to enjoy!!
Hi Rhonda, Thank you for such a thoughtful, kind comment! I am trilled that you enjoy the dressing so much.
Very tasty and so much better than all the chemicals in store bought brands. Definietly need to whisk it to keep all ingredients together
So glad you enjoyed it, Karen!
Your Honey-Mustard dressing is quite tasty!Thanks,SC
I tend to like ranch and blue cheese dressings (calories!). However, this is my new fave! So easy to make and tasty.
I am making 100 plus chunky chicken salads for a commemoration and have a question: Given that I don’t refrigerate yellow mustard or any of the ingredients, can I please prepare and package in individual plastic containers the dressing days ahead of my event WITHOUT refrigeration?
Honestly, we prefer to refrigerate mustards (especially if they have been opened). To be on the safe side, I’d keep them cool in a cooler or the fridge.
Ooh, I like it. Very well balanced, not too sweet or sour. I’ll make this again. I made this for a veggie wrap (whole wheat wrap, romaine, provolone, avocado and cucumber). Added some lentil chips on the side. Would add carrots and veggie chick’n next time. This made for a great combo!
A recipe that I don’t need to modify! A rarity. Great on a jerk chicken salad and my 7 year old has been enjoying this as a change of pace to her salads she brings to school.
Amazing! And absolutely worth 5 stars! It’s so good! I usually bring home chicken tenders from different restaurants and never have leftover honey mustard. So I’m not sad anymore cuz I know how to make it! Thank you!
A delicious dressing! I added some wholegrain mustard in as I like too see the seeds.
This is my go to recipe!
This was soooo good !!!! I did not change anything and it is perfect as a salad dressing! I’d drizzled it over some grilled chicken , peaches , cucumbers and tomatoes My family was in pure heaven.
THE best dressing! Drizzled over crunchy chicken salad.
This is delicious! It is definitely on the thin side, so I added 2 T mayo, which also helps prevent separation. And I threw in a clove of garlic and used the blender cup to homogenize it. YUM. Great on kale salad.
Excellent suggestions! Fantastic dressing!!
This is delicious as is but I have been making it with avocado oil because I dislike how olive oil solidifies when refrigerated. I know I miss out on the olive oil flavor but I’m ok with that. Yummy!
Just made the Honey Mustard Dressing…Loved it,just the way it is.
Good recipe but too much apple cider vinegar. Added only half but should be cut down a little more. Also used about 75grams of honey and added more pepper. Used half Dijon and half of another spiced mustard. And finally added about 1/4 teaspoon of blackened seasoning. Came out delicious!!!
So good and so easy!
In reading other reviewers’ comments, I get what they are saying about wanting the dressing to be a little thicker to use as a dipping sauce. But I think it is perfect the way it is written as a salad dressing.
I wanted mine really spicy, so I did half hot Chinese mustard & Half Dijon mustard. I’ve used it on homemade chicken nuggets. And, it’s really good, dipping Raw broccoli in it!!! Had A little kick to it!! I love your recipe!!
The addition of hot Chinese mustard sounds amazing!!! I love this recipe as is but I am definitely going to try it with hot mustard, because we love all things spicy
I can’t wait to try it with half Chinese mustard! Thanks for the idea!
I will have to try it with some hot mustard!! Sounds delicious!
Great recipe, I like honey mustard dressing and dipping sauces, but it’s hard to find the exact right flavor profile that I enjoy. I cut the vinegar down by about half on this recipe and it was exactly the way that I like it!
NEW TWEAK: I always experiment and customized. Adam & Joanne, yours is my favorite Honey Mustard Dressing, and here are my minor tweaks: I went back to your original recipe with 1/4 cup of Bragg’s vinegar, to get enough tang. I kept your lemon juice and (still within your parameters) increase the honey from 3 to 4 tablespoons (which balances out the vinegar). I ground the pepper corns coarser: #5 instead of #1 & #3 on my pepper mill. That does not make them crunchy, but, rather, transparently thin micro-slices. That brings out their flavor, adding a little more zing to the dressing. To make it a tiny bit creamier, I added a tablespoonful of Kite Hill almond-milk plain yogurt. (I specified a brand here because most almond-milk yogurts taste terrible. This one tastes like real, bovine yogurt). Everything else is exactly as you specified. Of course I used organic or non-GMO, soy-free, dairy-free ingredients. Thank you for your recipe. It is my favorite dressing!
The dressing, as is, wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. We are dairy free, so I couldn’t add sour cream. Instead i added some cashews and blended in our high speed blender. With that addition we really liked it!!
Great recipe! Thanks so much for sharing!
Delicious! Thank you!
Delicious!! Amazing recipe!! Try with homemade chick fil a nuggets!