This last time, I had a hankering for some mustard. Not the florescent yellow kind, of course, but the gritty, real kind, with kick and character.

As is typical in this aisle, however, most are loaded with salt and sugar. So, even if I’m tempted to be lazy and just purchase a premade jar, I’m not nearly as tempted to eat it.

I decided, the goal would be a vegan honey mustard and imagined using maple syrup in its place and leaving out the salt entirely. Little did I know, it wouldn’t even require that.

In order to keep the sweetener to a minimum, I opted for the naturally sweet rice vinegar over apple cider or white wine vinegar. Using a mini-funnel, I combined the last of the mustard powder and some rice vinegar in an empty hot sauce bottle and shook it up. A little more vinegar to give it a thick pour and a taste to see how much maple syrup I’d be using. Here’s where I was shocked: none needed. It was deliciously hot and rounded out beautifully by the rice vinegar.

I’ll have to get some more mustard powder to experiment with more flavors, but this made for a great version 1.0.

Please, share your favorite homemade mustard recipes in the comments below. Looking forward to trying yours next!