diff --git a/pkg/specgen/generate/kube/kube.go b/pkg/specgen/generate/kube/kube.go
index 2451f676bf..c806760a80 100644
--- a/pkg/specgen/generate/kube/kube.go
+++ b/pkg/specgen/generate/kube/kube.go
@@ -523,6 +523,7 @@ func probeToHealthConfig(probe *v1.Probe) (*manifest.Schema2HealthConfig, error)
 	// configure healthcheck on the basis of Handler Actions.
 	switch {
 	case probeHandler.Exec != nil:
+		// `makeHealthCheck` function can accept a json array as the command.
 		cmd, err := json.Marshal(probeHandler.Exec.Command)
 		if err != nil {
 			return nil, err
@@ -618,6 +619,8 @@ func makeHealthCheck(inCmd string, interval int32, retries int32, timeout int32,
 			// ...otherwise pass it to "/bin/sh -c" inside the container
 			cmd = []string{define.HealthConfigTestCmdShell}
 			cmd = append(cmd, strings.Split(inCmd, " ")...)
+		} else {
+			cmd = append([]string{define.HealthConfigTestCmd}, cmd...)
 		}
 	}
 	hc := manifest.Schema2HealthConfig{
diff --git a/test/e2e/play_kube_test.go b/test/e2e/play_kube_test.go
index b10f9333cb..13dedb9a5e 100644
--- a/test/e2e/play_kube_test.go
+++ b/test/e2e/play_kube_test.go
@@ -1754,7 +1754,7 @@ var _ = Describe("Podman play kube", func() {
 		inspect.WaitWithDefaultTimeout()
 		healthcheckcmd := inspect.OutputToString()
 		// check if CMD-SHELL based equivalent health check is added to container
-		Expect(healthcheckcmd).To(ContainSubstring("[echo hello]"))
+		Expect(healthcheckcmd).To(ContainSubstring("[CMD echo hello]"))
 	})
 
 	It("podman play kube liveness probe should fail", func() {