Creamy honey mustard dressing is a five minute whisk-together sauce where the honey does two jobs at once. It rounds off the sharp bite of the Dijon, and its thickness is what gives the dressing enough body to cling to a lettuce leaf or hold onto a chicken tender. There is no cooking involved at all. The only technique worth knowing is the order you add things, which is step two.

We keep hives on the dealership campus in Libertyville, and this is the jar we reach for most once the apples come in, because honey mustard and a crisp fall apple belong in the same bowl. Any honey works here. A mild clover or wildflower honey keeps the mustard out front where it belongs.