Swedish Mustard substitute

Best substitute

Dijon Mustard + Sugar

3 tbsp Dijon to 1 tbsp granulated or light brown sugar, used 1:1

Best for Christmas ham glaze

Different taste

The workhorse answer, and genuinely close once it has rested. Dijon supplies the smooth emulsified body and Swedish mustard's sweetness comes almost entirely from added sugar anyway.

Other swedish mustard substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Sweet Bavarian Mustard
Different texture
Use the same amount
The closest ready-made product on most shelves outside Scandinavia: sweet, mild, and made for exactly the same job of cutting fatty pork.
What changes
Best for
ham glaze, sausages, pretzels, roast pork, dressings
A shade maltier and grainier than Swedish mustard, which is smoother and darker, and often scented with caraway. On ham or sausage nobody would notice; in a smooth emulsified sauce the seeds are visible.
3Honey Mustard
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Already at roughly the right sweetness with a creamy, spreadable body, and it is in every supermarket.
What changes
Best for
ham glaze, sandwiches, dressings, roast pork
The honey is floral where Swedish mustard's sugar is neutral, and most jarred honey mustards are milder and thinner than skansk senap. Fine on ham, faintly perfumed in a gravlax dill sauce where the flavour has nowhere to hide.
4Yellow (American) Mustard + Brown Sugar
Different taste
3 tbsp yellow mustard to 1 tbsp dark brown sugar, used 1:1
The cheapest possible answer, and it gets the colour and the sweetness roughly right for pennies.
What changes
Best for
hot dogs, ham glaze, sausages, sandwiches
More vinegary and considerably more one-dimensional, with almost no real mustard heat, so the result tastes sweet-sour rather than sweet-and-pungent. Perfectly good on a sausage, weak in a sauce meant to stand up to cured salmon.
5Whole-Grain Mustard + Sugar
Taste and texture differ
3 tbsp whole-grain mustard to 1 tbsp sugar, used 1:1
Good flavour and easy to find, and the sugar brings it into Scandinavian territory quickly.
What changes
Best for
ham glaze, roast pork, sausages, cheese boards
The seeds change the texture of a smooth sauce or glaze noticeably, and in hovmastarsas the emulsion never comes together properly because there is not enough smooth mustard to hold it. Better on the ham than in the sauce.
6Mustard Powder Built from Scratch
Close match
2 tbsp mustard powder, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp water, 1 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar, pinch of salt; whisk and rest 15 minutes
The closest control over exactly how sweet and how hot the result is, which matters because Swedish brands vary a lot.
What changes
Best for
hovmastarsas, ham glaze, dressings, sauces
Harsh and sinus-clearing at first and it mellows considerably as it sits, so make it ahead and taste again. It will be paler and less glossy than the jar, and it thickens a little on standing, so hold back a splash of water.

What is Swedish Mustard?

Swedish Mustard is a smooth, dark, distinctly sweet Scandinavian mustard with only mild heat, made with a good deal of sugar, and its job in a recipe is to cut the fat of Christmas ham or cured salmon with sweetness and gentle pungency rather than with sharp heat.

Cooking tips

Rest any mustard you have sweetened or mixed from powder for 15 to 30 minutes before using it. The raw harshness fades, the sweetness comes forward, and a mixture that tasted wrong at first often tastes right after a wait.
Heat destroys mustard's pungency, so in a Christmas ham glaze the mustard is mostly sugar, colour and body by the time the ham comes out of the oven. If you want actual bite, brush a little raw mustard on after resting.
For hovmastarsas, the dill mustard sauce served with gravlax, you need a smooth mustard whisked with sugar, vinegar and neutral oil into a loose emulsion. A grainy mustard never emulsifies properly and the sauce stays split and oily.
Never boil mustard into a sauce. Add it off the heat, because sustained heat turns it bitter and can break a cream sauce, and this is the most common way a Nordic mustard cream sauce goes wrong.
Swedish mustards vary a great deal in sweetness from brand to brand, so treat any sugar quantity as a starting point and taste rather than trusting a fixed measure.
Sweetened mustard browns fast under a broiler because of the sugar, so glaze late in the roasting and watch it. A ham glaze can go from burnished to burnt in three or four minutes.

Frequently asked questions

What is the closest substitute for Swedish mustard?

Dijon whisked with sugar, roughly three tablespoons of Dijon to one of sugar, rested for fifteen minutes. Swedish mustard's defining feature is sweetness on top of a smooth mustard base, and that is exactly what this gives you. Sweet Bavarian mustard is the nearest thing you can buy ready-made.

Is Swedish mustard the same as Dijon?

No. Dijon is sharp, clean and not sweet, made with white wine or verjuice, and it carries real heat. Swedish mustard is markedly sweeter, darker, smoother and much milder, closer in spirit to a sweet German mustard. Adding sugar to Dijon is the standard way to bridge the gap.

Can I use German mustard instead of Swedish mustard?

Sweet Bavarian mustard, yes, measure for measure, and it is the best ready-made swap there is. Ordinary sharp German mustard, sometimes labelled mittelscharf, is not sweet, so treat it like Dijon and whisk in sugar at about three to one before using it in a Nordic recipe.

Can I just leave the mustard out of a ham glaze?

Not really, because you would be glazing with plain sugar. Mustard supplies the acid and the savoury depth that keep a sweet glaze from tasting like candy, as well as helping it cling to the meat. Any mustard plus sugar will do the job, and even plain yellow mustard with brown sugar is far better than nothing.

Is skansk senap the same as Danish julesennep?

They are close relatives, both sweet Scandinavian Christmas mustards served with ham and cured fish. Danish julesennep is often a little sharper and more vinegary, while Swedish skansk senap leans sweeter and smoother. In practice you can swap them one for one and adjust the sugar to taste.

Related substitutes

More sauces & condiments substitutes

Swedish Mustard substitute

Other swedish mustard substitutes

2Sweet Bavarian Mustard

3Honey Mustard

4Yellow (American) Mustard + Brown Sugar

5Whole-Grain Mustard + Sugar

6Mustard Powder Built from Scratch