Rachael Ray’s Honey Mustard Chicken Is the Comfort Food You Didn’t Know You Needed

Relying on TV chefs for recipes has never been my thing. After all, their milieu is entertainment, not necessarily the kind of visceral deliciousness I can hope for from working restaurant chefs in my job as a food critic. But even I have to admit that sometimes a celebrity chef can get it right.

Case in point? Rachael Ray’s Spicy Honey Mustard Chicken with Potatoes and Green Beans. Jet-lagged from a 25-hour set of flights home from Malaysia, the last thing I wanted to do this week was cook a complicated meal. The brilliance of Ray’s dish is that it’s an easy meal that comprises protein, starch and a green vegetable. It tricked me into finally preparing a well-rounded repast that was just what I needed to recover from the 13-hour time difference.

I first became aware of Ray more than 20 years ago when her food travel show $40 a Day debuted on Food Network. Since those early years, when one could actually eat three meals for that price, the former Price Chopper cooking demonstrator has rocketed to become the force behind multiple brands. Those include endorsements of everything from kitchen goods to dog food. 

Given all that, I wasn’t really aware of her culinary style as much as her aesthetic. Not surprisingly, it turns out that they match seamlessly. Her cozy personality means that she shares recipes with a comfort-food edge and a touch of sophistication. That might include anything from Neapolitan-born fried pizza montanare to a colorful pan of beef fajitas. It’s a world of approachable flavor, but while quick and easy recipes are one of her fortes, there isn’t an emphasis on health.

That’s why I was surprised to find this beautifully balanced recipe on her website. I dove into preparing the Spicy Honey Mustard Chicken with aplomb. Luckily, I already had everything I needed in my refrigerator and pantry, except for the chicken, green beans and potatoes. I purchased those at Walmart and set to work.

The recipe doesn’t include an expected preparation time, but it took me about an hour and 20 minutes from start to finish. I began by blanching the vegetables. I tossed the package of cut green beans into a boiling pot of salty water, then put them in an ice-cold water bath. I plopped the tiny potatoes into the same pot to parboil for 5 minutes.

The recipe calls for a large skillet, but since I’d be transferring it to the oven, I decided to use my beloved purple Le Creuset Dutch oven for the task. I heated it to medium-high on the stove, seasoned the raw chicken liberally with salt and pepper, then browned all eight pieces, about three at a time, in olive oil. This took a while, well more than the 8 or 9 minutes the recipe mentions, but I wanted to make sure that the skin was crispy. 

I also browned the halved potatoes. I’m not a big fan of spuds, so I don’t often cook with them, but the smell of them frying couldn’t help but make my mouth water. So did the odor that emanated from four cloves of garlic browning in the 4 tablespoons of butter I added to the pot.

Here’s where I broke from Ray’s directions. The recipe says to add all the additional ingredients at once, but I believe that there are procedures that should be followed in cooking. I bloomed the pimentón, or smoked sweet paprika, to release its flavors. Only then did I deglaze the pan with a splash of white wine. Finally, I stirred in chicken stock, honey, Dijon mustard, granulated onion and rosemary. The sauce was thinner than expected, but I suspected it would cook down, even without adding a bit of flour as I often would. 

I returned the chicken and potatoes to the pan and coated them with the honeyed Dijon sauce. With the Dutch oven covered, I roasted the combined ingredients for 20 minutes. I finished the recipe by adding the green beans to the pot and cooking the whole thing for another 15 minutes.

The result? A sweet, flavor-packed meal that I can get behind. My favorite part is the earthy smoke of the pimentón, which takes the flavor beyond the honey mustard sweetness I’d expected. I will make a couple of tweaks next time I prepare it. I thought that the dish could use a little bit more acid—in the future I’ll use lemon or vinegar instead of the wine. And I’ll reduce the sauce more before putting in the chicken and potatoes. 

A matter of personal preference: I prefer my skin-on chicken crispy. For the leftovers, I reheated the chicken in the air fryer until the wings, thighs and drumsticks shattered at first bite. I might do the same to the potatoes too.

But this exercise not only gave me a hearty, balanced lunch—with leftovers—it also taught me something. Just because someone is a TV chef doesn’t mean they have no real culinary cred. They didn’t make it to the airwaves by accident. And I’ll be tuning in for more Spicy Honey Mustard Chicken with Potatoes and Green Beans soon.