My Grandmother’s Mustard Sauce (AKA: “The Ham Sauce”)
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If you are baking a ham this holiday, you must make this mustard sauce, too. It is so delicious and so simple to prepare — it’s a matter of bringing a few ingredients to a boil and then passing the mixture through a strainer. It’s fantastic for leftover ham sandwiches.
In my family, this mustard sauce is as essential as the ham on the holiday table. It takes no time to whisk together, and it is so nice to have on hand for leftover ham sandwiches.
Serve it aside this baked ham with brown sugar glaze.
You can watch the video above, but here’s the visual play-by-play: Gather your ingredients: cream, ground mustard, vinegar, salt, sugar, egg yolks.
Combine them in a saucepan and whisk until smooth:
Bring to a simmer over medium heat, whisking often. Do not walk away. As soon as it simmers, it’s done. Strain it.
Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week (or longer).
It is sooooo nice to have on hand for leftover ham sandwiches on …
My Grandmother’s Mustard Sauce
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 .5 cups
Description
This mustard sauce is as essential as the ham on my family’s holiday table. It takes no time to whisk together, it is SO delicious, and it is so nice to have on hand for leftover ham sandwiches.
Not all dry mustards are created equally, and depending on the type you use, your sauce could taste unpleasantly strong. I don’t have a strong preference of brands here, but in recent years I use the Tone’s ground mustard, which I find at my local co-op. It’s not fancy — just the generic brand of spices my store carries.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (114 g) sugar
- 1/4 cup (70 g) white wine vinegar
- 4 tablespoons (24 g) ground mustard, see notes above
- 4 egg (60 g roughly) yolks
- 1 teaspoon (4 g) kosher salt
- 1 cup (240 g) heavy cream
Instructions
- Place a strainer over a medium-sized bowl (able to hold about 2 cups of liquid). Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, and whisk until smooth. Bring to a simmer while monitoring closely and stirring often. As soon as the mixture comes to boil, pour it through the strainer into the bowl. Let cool, then cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Condiment
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
115 Comments on “My Grandmother’s Mustard Sauce (AKA: “The Ham Sauce”)”
OMG Ali — Thank you for this great recipe! one of our guests offered to bring a ham to Thanksgiving– I remembered reading this recipe and made it—- what a great flavor and great condiment to have on next day sandwiches.
So great to hear this, Mikki! It’s my fave sauce. So glad you approve 🙂 🙂 🙂
How long does it last in the refrigerator and how do you reheat it.
I’d say 1 week (maybe a little longer).
Very very good. I think I may have put a tad too much vinegar as I was using up the bottle so while it was still warm (after straining) I added about 1 TBSP of honey. Perfect! Better than store bought sweet honey mustards.
Great to hear and yum! Sounds so good 🙂
I made this for our Christmas Eve ham. I had to substitue Dijon mustard and it was amazing. Still is. I will certwinly make this again!
Great to hear, Louise! Thanks for writing 🙂
Made this to go with ham on Christmas and it was an absolute hit. We had some left over and it was the perfect accompaniment to a baked soft pretzel. The balance of tartness from the vinegar and sweetness from the sugar is perfect. Thanks for the recipe.
Great to hear, Vince! Thanks so much for writing 🙂 🙂 🙂
I am intrigued by the HAM SAUCE. Do you think that a person could use prepared mustard instead of dry powder and if so how much would you recommend? Thank you!
I have not done this but someone did recently… you may be able to find the comment if you scroll up a bit… I think she used 3 tablespoons of mustard. Hope it turns out… again, I’ve never tried, so I’d hate to lead you astray!
Thanks for the reply. I have a favorite brand of mustard I would like to use.
I appreciate your encouragement and am confident it will be fine.
Good luck 🙂
Hi there! Hoping to make this for a large dinner soon! Unfortunately, we do not have tones ground mustard in our area. Have you used McCormicks by chance? Or possibly Walmarts Great value organic brand? If so, do you have a ratio recommendation for these brands?
Those should be fine! Tones is not fancy at all… I think it’s my store’s generic brand. Either of the ones you notes will work great. Go for it!
Thanks so much! Appreciate your quick response!
Hello, I’m not a mustard fan, but the rest of my family love it. Should this be served cold, room temperature or warm? Thanks!
Room temperature is ideal!
What kind/brand of mustard powder did you use? Did you make any changes to the recipe?
No changes. Great value.
My only thought is that the brand you are using is stronger/more bitter than the brands I have used over the years. Sorry to hear this didn’t turn out as it’s one of my favorites.
Going to make it today. But the highlight of this was hearing your wee little helper in the background of the video. God bless
Hope you love it, Bob!
I prepared the mustard sauce to accompany the your ham recipe for Easter dinner. It was fabulous. I will never serve ham without it!! Thank you for a treasure of a recipe.
Great to hear, Susan! Thanks so much for writing. We’ve been enjoying the ham sauce all week with leftovers 🙂
I made this sauce today using 1/2 and 1/2 instead of cream and it worked great. I’m going to serve this with some ground pork meatballs. Thank you for your recipes. We love them!!
Yum! Great to hear, Sara 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thanks so much for writing!
This is a delicious sauce. I was a little sceptical – I mean, i like mustard, I like sauce, but could a mustard sauce be deserving of such praise,I wondered. Well, yes, it can. Really, really good stuff.
So happy to hear this, Carol! Thanks for writing 🙂
My family have food aversions up the yahoo, which includes — of course — milk products. I can get by with the egg yolks, but the cream (or any moo product short of steak) would be a hard pass.
I’m torn between making this as is and letting them suffer, making a family-friendly and therefore dull sauce (raisen?), or coming up with a suitable replacement for the cream that is vegan, non-GMO, and GF. I’m coming up with zilch (and zip). Any ideas…olive oil emulsification maybe?
Thank you. I will probably make recipe regardless — you had me at heavy cream.
Hi Ross! I’m a little stumped as how to advise as well. I just googled “vegan substitutes for heavy cream” and found some promising items. Silk brand, which is readily available, makes a vegan heavy cream. That said, from the bit of googling I’ve done, it also looks as though these vegan heavy creams break easily, so I worry about it curdling in this sauce.
I kind of vote for you to make it as is… the chef deserves a proper ham sauce! Are you making a ham? If so or if not, let me know and I can think of some other alternative sauces… I’m just not confident this one will adapt well to vegan substitutes.
Joining the chorus of people saying they will never make ham without this “sauce” again! So good – thanks!
Grat to hear, Cassie! Thanks for writing 🙂
Made this mustard sauce with your ham recipe. I would give it ten stars if I could. It was outstanding and got rave reviews for very little effort. I added about a tablespoon of honey as the dried mustard I used was a tad bitter. Made it a day ahead and tasted better with “age” A real keeper.
Great to hear, Mary-Ellen! Thanks so much for writing and sharing your notes 🙂 Happy holidays!
My kids always request this sauce when I cook ham! It’s wonderful! When making it most recently, I added whole eggs by mistake (instead using of just the yolks). I went ahead with the sauce and can report that it still turned out perfectly! It actually had way fewer lumps than I’ve gound in the past when straining it.
Great to hear, Laura! Thanks so much for writing your notes. Happy Holidays!
I’m intrigued with this sauce recipe. I was planning on serving a crown of pork forEaster. Do you think this sauce would compliment the pork or Fresh Ham?
I think the mustard sauce would work really well with the crown of pork! Go for it 🙂
This stuff is addictive, seriously. I just made it for the first time, and when I took a little spoon and tasted it, I had to keep going back to the cutlery drawer for more spoons for more tastes. I just washed eight tasting spoons. This will be fantastic with our Easter ham and I can’t wait for our foodie son to taste it! Glad I found this website and look forward to cooking more from it. Thank you and happy Easter everyone!
I’m thinking of making this with your brown sugar glazed ham recipe for Easter lunch… but I’m out of white wine vinegar. I have a bunch of other vinegars though and was wondering if you or anyone else have tried this with a substitute? I have homemade green apple cider vinegar, balsamic, rice wine, regular ACV and white distilled.
I would use regular ACV! or the rice vinegar.
I ended up going with the green apple cider vinegar and doubled the recipe since we have a 20 lb bone in smoked ham. Ended up making it two days early as well and used it as a sauce that night for crispy pan fried pork chops. I want to make it again with rice vinegar and try it with fish or chicken. Seems universally tasty! All tasters have approved so far! Thank you for sharing Ali ❤️
I made this last year for Easter and it was a huge hit. This year it seemed to separate before it came to a boil. Any ideas on what happened? Thank you!
I first made this for a Christmas ham last year , its was a gigantic hit. The next day I tried some of the sauce on a sandwich. Since then it’s become a new regular in the rotation of my in-house condiments and please excuse me if I need to sample a spoonful each time I open the jar.
I’m so happy to hear this, Frank!
I have been meaning to comment on this recipe. I made this at Christmas to go with the ham I served. Everyone raved about how delicious it was. The best thing for me is how long it lasted in my refrigerator. I used it on many sandwiches and on baked salmon as a side spread. I finally decided a week or so ago, in April, that it was time to throw away what little was left. Thanks you so much for the delicious 4 months I enjoyed it!!
thnak you for sharing your Grandma’s recipe. Awesome mustard sauce. Serving it with ham tomorrow. I reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup and I used apple cider vinegar ( as i didn’t have white wine vinegar and too lazy to make another trip to the grocery store). It still tasted awesome. Thanks
Looks delish! Planning on making the mustard sauce for the ham according to your directions. Hope it is a hit this Easter!
OMG, I just made this to have as an option on our Easter table. SO delicious! I used Coleman’s. Perfect condiment for our ham : )