Honey Mustard Roast Chicken

One of the ways I make my roast chicken recipes stay new and interesting, is by incorporating new flavors and sauces.  In this recipe, I show you how to make a Honey Mustard Roast Chicken, that is super flavorful and super easy to make.  Honey and mustard is a natural combination, that works really well with the blank canvas that chicken is.  Plus, for this recipe, we roast the chicken slowly in the oven, and the honey mustard, forms a glaze that helps crisp up the skin, making it absolutely delicious, while also penetrating into the meat itself.  Once the chicken is cooked and resting, I show you to make a quick pan sauce, using the same mustard, that will bring all the flavors together, and won’t take any more than 10 minutes.  Hope you enjoy this chicken recipe as much as I do!

Recipe Overview & Keys to Success

To make the best Honey Mustard Roast Chicken, just follow these few cooking techniques:

1. Just because you are glazing the chicken, doesn’t mean you don’t need to season the chicken.  Honey and mustard, are not salt and pepper, so don’t forgot to season
2. Honey is sugar.  And sugar caramelizes (which is good) quickly, and burns (which is bad) almost as quickly.  You can’t put the glaze on the chicken at the start of the process or it will burn...but you need to give it some time to bake on and caramelize.  The sweet spot is about 20 - 30 minutes in the oven, so you'll want to drizzel it on after about 40 or so minutes, or at an internal temp of 125/130.  If you find the glaze not cooked enough when the chicken is done, just use the broiler to crisp it up quickly at the end.  Too browned, cover with foil.
3. Like all my roast chickens, I like to use a brine.  I also like to cook the chicken at high heat (400 degrees).  At that temp, it will take between 1 – 1 1/2 hours to get to an internal temp of 155 which is what you want before removing from the oven.
4. You gotta let the chicken rest.  There’s a surprising amount of juice in chicken (especially if you brine it), and if you carve it right out of the oven, the juice will end up all over your cutting board.  Let it rest for 10 minutes.  The perfect amount of time to make a sauce.

• 1 whole roasting chicken (about 5 – 8 lbs)
• 3 tablespoons cup of honey
• 3 tablespoons cup of dijon mustard
• Dash of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon mustard for the sauce
• 2 tablespoons butter

• Clean the Chicken by removing it from the bag, and discard the innards
• Optionally Brine the Chicken for anywhere from 5  - 15 hours if you’d like
• Dry the chicken off with some paper towels and (optionally) tie the legs and tuck the wings under to prevent burning (this is a nice to do, but you’ll get a fine roast chicken without it)
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
• Season the inside of the chicken with salt and pepper, and then the outside
• Put the chicken on the middle rack in the oven, and allow it to roast for about 40 minutes or until the internal temp reaches about 130
• While the chicken roasts, combine the honey, mustard, and the cayenne pepper together and mix well
• Remove the chicken from the oven, when it has bout 20 minutes left (at the 40 minute mark/130 degree internal temp) and drizzle the honey mustard mix all over the chicken breasts, legs and wings
• Move the chicken back into the oven to finish cooking
• Check on the chicken after about 15 minutes and then every 5 minutes until the internal temp reaches 155
• If the glaze is browning too much, cover the chicken with aluminum foil, and then remove the foil again for the last 5 minutes of cooking
• Remove the chicken from the oven and put it on a cutting board to rest for at least 10 minutes
• While the chicken rests, drain most of the oil from the pan you roasted the chicken in, and put it back over high heat on the stove top
• Add the chicken stock, along with another tablespoon of mustard, and stir it in
• Deglaze the pan and reduce the stock by half
• Turn off the heat, add the butter and stir it in
• Carve the chicken and serve with the sauce either drizzled over or on the side

Wine Recommendation:  The perfect wine pairing for a honey mustard chicken is not an easy task.  Mustard is a hard pairing, as the vinegar/sweet can frequently clash with most wines, and the chicken’s mild, lean flavor doesn’t compensate much for the mustard's trickiness.  So…much like some other tricky foods, I’m going to default to a Riesling…which is a full bodied white, with amazing fruit and floral qualities, and good acid that will both stand up to, and cut through the mustard.