I love the taste of honey mustard. Whether it be a salad dressing, a marinade or a dipping sauce, to me the flavor of honey and mustard combined is simply fabulous. So the other day when faced with grilling chicken for dinner, I decided to kick the flavor up a notch, marinate the chicken in a home made honey mustard sauce, baste the the chicken with the sauce while it was grilling and finally adding a drizzle of it on top right before serving. It was death by honey mustard sauce, but boy was it ever delicious.
So let’s talk grilled honey mustard chicken…
Lesson Learned 1 – Honey mustard sauce/marinade comes in all different shapes and sizes: I’ve tried various ways of making a honey mustard sauce. What I like about this version is it contains sour cream which, I think, adds to creaminess and tang of the sauce. You certainly can use plain yogurt or even chicken stock when making a honey mustard sauce. But so far, I like this sauce recipe the best.
The other thing I recommend is using a mixture of whole grain and dijon mustards to make the sauce. I think using whole grain mustard not only adds to the depth of the sauce’s flavor but also gives great texture and eye appeal. Remember you eat first with your eyes. By using whole grain mustard there is no doubt what’s in the sauce.
My last recommendation where the sauce is concerned is to marinate the chicken for at least 4 hours, with overnight being preferable. Once you’ve put the chicken in a bag with the marinade, remember to turn it over every once in a while to make sure every inch in soaking in the tasty marinade. Also once you’ve made the marinade and before you pour it in the bag save about a quarter of a cup to baste the chicken with during grilling and to drizzle over the chicken right before you serve. All I can say is YUMMO!
Lesson Learned 2 – Should you use skin-on or skinless chicken breasts: As you can see from the pictures, I chose to grill skin-on boneless chicken breasts. In many instances I find the fat from the skin permeates the meat during the cooking process and adds additional moistness to the meat. But you have to consider the fact that the sauce contains honey, and I found the skin tended to stick to the grill because of the honey.
Marinated Chicken Breasts
After a point I wound up just peeling the skin off and cooking the breasts without it. The sticking factor was much less, I still got great grill marks and the breasts were moist. Just make sure you flip them every 5-6 minutes. I cooked mine for about 30 minutes total. Your cooking time will depend upon the thickness of your chicken breasts and the temperature of your grill. If you’re not sure if they’re done, stick a meat thermometer into the center of the meat. If it reads 160 degrees, you’re good to go. Just make sure to turn them over regularly.
If you’ve been following this blog you know I am a big fan of chicken. I eat it a lot and so I’m always experimenting with ways to prepare it. If you have any favorite chicken recipes you want me to try, just let me know. But I guarantee this recipe is definitely a winner. Enjoy!
Grilled Honey Mustard Chicken…
INGREDIENTS:
Four 6-8 ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup mustard (half dijon half whole grain) – you can make it a generous half cup
1/3 cup clover honey
1/3 cup sour cream
2 TBS steak sauce
chives for garnish
DIRECTIONS:
Mix together the mustards, honey, sour cream and steak sauce. Take a quarter cup of the marinade and put it in a separate container in the refrigrator. Place the chicken is a sealable plastic bag and pour the remaining marinade into the bag. Seal the bag and massage the contents until the marinade is evenly distributed over the chicken.
Place the chicken in the refrigerator and marinate it for at least 4 hours, overnight is preferable but not necessary. Turn the bag over every once in a while to make sure the chicken gets regularly coated with the marinade.
Prepare your grill (we have a gas grill and I heated it to 400 degrees). Remove the chicken from the marinade and toss the bag with the marinade into the trash. Cook the chicken on the grill for 30 – 40 minutes, (feedback from a reader below said their cooking time was only 10 minutes) remembering to turn it over every 5-6 minutes and basting the breasts every time you turn them over with the marinade you initially set aside in the refrigerator. The chicken is done when the internal temperature at the center of the thickest part of the meat is 160 degrees. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Per the feedback below, the main thing is to keep an eye on your chicken breasts while making this recipe. For my grill it takes about 30 minutes for 8 ounce breasts. As you can see from the comment below, on their grill it took only ten minutes, which would indicate that their chicken breasts may have been slightly smaller than mine or their grill slightly hotter than mine. That was great feedback, and definitely something to keep in mind when grilling chicken breasts.)
Before serving, drizzle the breasts with some of the remaining marinade and garnish with chopped chives.
Serving Suggestion: grilled honey mustard chicken, baked potato with fresh chopped chives and simple oven roasted tomatoes
You Betcha Can Make This! 
Here’s another winner. The marinade/basting sauce is wonderfully zesty and tasty, and the dish looked great and tasted great on the plate. Good enough for company, and easy enough to prepare while visiting with guests.
But I didn’t dare grill the chicken for the specified 30-to-40 minutes. It would have been charcoal by that time on our grill.
We used two boneless, skinless half breasts weighing 1.8 pounds total. To pare them to the specified size of 6-to-8 ounces, I sliced them horizontally, so I had four breast portions each weighing 8 ounces. I marinated them in a resealable plastic bag, and then froze two of the portions. I put the other two on the 400-degree grill, turned them and basted them once, and after 10 minutes of grilling, they were done, with a nice char on the edges.
We served our two portions with white rice and grilled asparagus for a perfect meal. And we have two portions in the freezer for dinner later.
Thanks for a great recipe!
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Thanks for the feedback and I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Maybe my chicken breasts were a little larger than what I specified so I’ll adjust the cooking time in the recipe to reflect it can cook anywhere from 10 – 40 minutes depending upon your grill and the size of your chicken breast. Mine normally take about 30 minutes on average. The main thing is to keep an eye on them. I’m so glad you liked the recipe!
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