Honey Glazed Ham (How-To, Times, Temps, and When to Glaze)

Here’s the truth about any holiday ham, including this Honey Glazed Ham, and I say this as somebody who has cooked a lot of holiday dinners that took real nerve. You cannot undercook it. So if you’re a nervous host or you’re a new cook THIS is the holiday dinner recipe you NEED!

Most modern hams came out of the package already cooked! Everything you do from here is warming it up and making it taste like YOURS. That’s the whole job. There’s no brining at five in the morning. No wondering if the middle is safe. No standing in front of the oven with a thermometer and a bad feeling in your stomach.

And for almost no effort at all you get this glossy, mahogany, honey lacquered ham dinner that makes people make NOISES when you carry it to the table. Your whole house smells like a holiday two hours before anybody sits down. The sugar catches at the edges and goes a little chewy and crispy, and those are the pieces people fight over.

Then here’s the part I actually love. It keeps feeding you. A ham is the only holiday dinner where the leftovers might be the whole point. Sandwiches. Ham and dumplings. Split pea soup that costs you nothing because the bone is free. You cook once and you eat off it for a week.

Buy your ham when it’s cheap, not when you need it

This is the best ham advice I’ve got and it has nothing to do with cooking.

Ham goes on sale around Easter and around Christmas. Those are the two weeks a year when every grocery store in the country is trying to move them and the price per pound drops to something you will not see again for months. Some stores run them at Thanksgiving too, while everybody else is staring at turkeys.

So if you can buy two. Cook one. Freeze one.

A ham freezes beautifully. Leave it in the store packaging and then put that inside a freezer bag, or wrap it a second time, because store wrap is thin and freezer burn is REAL. One to two months for good quality. It’s safe longer than that, it just starts giving up some texture.

Then in June, when you want a ham dinner and ham costs what ham costs in June, you’ve already got one sitting there.

And listen to me. Do not let anybody make you feel bad about the cheap ham, or the store brand, or the one with the markdown sticker slapped on it. A ham is a ham. The glaze is going on it either way.

Why spiral cut for this one

You pay more per pound for a spiral ham and what you’re paying for is the convenience of having it all sliced yp, which is a reasonable thing to be annoyed about.

Buy it anyway. Here’s why. A spiral ham is already cut all the way down to the bone. So when you brush this glaze on, it runs down between every single slice instead of just sitting on top. Every piece gets glaze on it. You cannot do that with a whole ham, no matter how patient you are with a knife. That’s the entire point of this recipe. The spiral slice is doing real work.

If you’re making a plain ham on some other day, sure, buy whole and keep your money. For this one, get the spiral.

What you need For a Honey Glazed Ham

I love a recipe that relies mostly on pantry items. You don’t need anything special for this recipe, well except the ham that is!

• A fully cooked bone in spiral sliced ham, 8 to 10 pounds. Read the label. If it says fully cooked or ready to eat, you’re in the right place.
• honey
• brown sugar
• orange juice
• Dijon mustard
• butter
• cinnamon
• ground cloves

You will also need:

• a roasting pan
• foil
• a small saucepan
• pastry brush
• meat thermometer

The thermometer is not optional. It’s the only thing on that list that changes how your ham turns out, and a basic instant read one costs less than the ham does. Every single “my ham came out dry” story starts the exact same way, with somebody cooking by the clock instead of by the temperature.

All About Reheating a Ham

Because most hams sold these days are already cooked you’re really just reaheating and glazing hams. Double check the packaging to confirm its a precooked and then proceed with these directions.

Cover The Ham Tightly

Oven to 325°F. Ham goes in cut side down in the roasting pan, and you cover it TIGHTLY with foil.

Tightly. I mean it. That foil is the only thing standing between you and a dry ham, because a spiral ham has a hundred cut faces and every one of them is trying to give up moisture.

How long to cook a Precooked Ham

An 8 to 10 pound ham runs about 10 to 12 minutes a pound. So somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. But cook to the temperature, not to the clock. You want 140°F and not one degree more or you’ll have the driest ham this side of the Atlantic.

Put the thermometer in the thickest part of the meat and NOT touching the bone. The bone runs hotter than the meat around it and it will lie right to your face.

Start checking thirty minutes before you think you’re close. Ovens are different, hams are different, and there’s no prize for finding out late.

One other number worth tucking away. 140°F is for a fully cooked ham in its original packaging, which is what you have.

Ham glaze, and when to put it on

Make the glaze while the ham is cooking. And then let it rest until it’s time to use it. Do not glaze the ham right off the bat or you’ll burn the glaze to an absolute crisp.

At thirty minutes left, foil comes off and you brush on the glaze on generously. Be sure to get it down in between the slices. Then brush again every 8-10 minutes until the thermometer reaches 104F°when you check the ham. Each coat sets and the next one builds on top of it, and that layering is where the shine comes from. One coat gives you a sticky ham. Three coats give you the thing people take pictures of.

For the last five to ten minutes, turn the oven up to 400°F. That’s what gets you the caramelized edges. But don’t leave the kitchen, I’m serious. It goes from gorgeous to ruined faster than you would believe and there’s no coming back from it.

Then out of the oven, and let it rest ten to fifteen minutes before you carve. Before serving spoon that extra glaze out of the pan over the slices. Don’t leave it in the pan. That’s the best glaze of the whole batch, because it’s been cooking down in there the whole time.

What can go wrong With a Baked Ham

• Dry ham. Number one problem, and with a spiral cut it’s the one to watch, because all those cut faces dry out faster than any other ham you’ll buy. Foil on tight the entire time until the last thirty minutes. Pull it at 140°F. That’s it, those are the two rules.

• Bitter taste. The glaze when on to early and burnt. Thirty minutes, not before.

• Ham is tasteless. Glaze was only brushed on the outside. This one’s easy to do without noticing. You brush the top, it looks great, and then you carve it and the inside slices are naked. Get in between them.

• The pan is burnt. It’s going to happen a little. Put an inch of water in the pan before the ham goes in, and fill that pan with hot soapy water the SECOND the ham comes out. Don’t let it sit and harden while you eat dinner.

• The ham is salty. Some hams just are, and there’s not much you can do once it’s cooked. Serve it alongside something plain and starchy, potatoes or rolls, and go easy on salt everywhere else on the table.

• It doesn’t slice well. Let it rest. Ten to fifteen minutes, every time. And honestly? Nobody in the history of holidays has ever been disappointed by a ragged slice of ham.

Got Leftovers?

Do NOT let it cool all the way on the counter first. I know, that’s what we all learned. And while it’s right for a loaf of bread and it’s wrong for meat. A ham sitting out on the counter is sitting in exactly the temperature range bacteria like best.

So be sure to get it into the refrigerator within two hours of it leaving the oven. That’s the USDA line and it isn’t flexible. But don’t stick the whole ham in there in one piece either. A big hot mass cools from the outside in and the middle can stay warm for hours. Carve it off the bone into smaller pieces or containers FIRST. Small pieces cool fast, and cooling fast is the whole point.

How long does it keep? Easier than people make it. A whole ham still sealed in its store wrapper gets about a week. Anything you’ve cut into, which is yours the minute it comes out of the oven, gets three to five days. The cutting is what starts the clock.

In the freezer you’re looking at one to two months for good ham. And I want to be clear about what that number means, because it confuses everybody. Frozen ham stays SAFE basically forever. The one to two months is about quality. After that it goes dry and the texture gives up, so it’s still dinner, it’s just not the dinner you were hoping for.

Using Leftover ham

Ham is one of the ultimate leftovers to have in the fridge. Need snacks? Ham salad! Need breakfast? Make this Ham and Swiss Croissant Bake. (it makes a great dinner too!)

What ever you do follow this rule, when you’re reheating leftover ham you need to get it to 165°F. That’s another USDA guideline, not mine.

For best results when using leftover ham try freezing it in the shape you want to cook it in. So for ham slices maybe freeze them on a baking sheet, and then slide them in a ziploc bag for making sandwiches later on. Take out a slice or take out four, it thaws quickly and makes for easy sandwiches.

Diced ham for casseroles can be frozen the same way. Frozen on a baking sheet and then crumbled into freezer bags. Make even easier to use by measure it out into 1-2 or 3 cup portions in their own bags.

And the scrappy bits, and there will be plenty. Everything you carve off close to the bone. Bag it all together and write “soup” on it. They’re not pretty. Doesn’t matter even a little. Press the air out of every bag, freeze them flat, and put the date on them. Flat bags stack, they thaw faster, and you can actually see what you’ve got in there.

Keep the Ham Bone

The bone is smoky, it’s salty, it’s full of gelatin, and any soup you make with it will taste like it simmered all day long. That bone is practically FREE SOUP add beans and veggies you got good old fashioned ham bone soup like ham and dumplings. People go to the store and buy ham hocks on purpose just to a good ham bone. Don’t want ham soup? Wrap the bone well and freeze it. It keeps for months and it’s like finding a treasure chest in your freezer.

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