Glazed Baked Ham
A big baked ham is one of the easiest things to prepare for a holiday celebration. It’s economical, even a half-ham can feed a dozen people with leftovers, and a full ham typically goes on sale the week before Easter bringing the per-person cost down even more.
The ham is already cooked, all you have to do is heat it to a serving temperature and if you want, apply a simple glaze.
That said, you can easily make some mistakes when cooking a ham. If you use an already sliced (spiral cut) ham, if you don’t wrap it tightly enough with foil, the outer areas can dry out. You need to let the ham sit at room temp for a couple of hours before cooking, otherwise the inside will still be cool when the outside is properly heated.
Finally, many package instructions say to heat the ham to 140°F. That’s just asking for a dry ham. Aim for 110°F to 120°F. Remember, the ham is already cooked! You are just warming it up.
For this recipe my friend Suzanne and I baked two hams, one with Suzanne’s favorite sweet hot honey mustard glaze, and one with an intriguing honey thyme glaze from Gourmet magazine.
We used regular non-spiral cut hams, scored them first in a diamond pattern, applied a glaze, cooked, basted with glaze, and finished browning in the broiler. Both hams turned out beautifully.
The two glazes we used are both honey-based, though you could use other things for a sweetened glaze, pineapple juice, marmalade, maple syrup. Do you have a favorite glazed ham glaze? If so, please let us know about it in the comments.
Glazed Baked Ham Recipe
Most baked ham recipes call for heating the ham to an internal temp of 140°F. But you can heat it to a lower temp, you just want it to be warm enough to eat. The higher the internal temp, the more risk there is of drying out the ham. So the guideline here is 110°F to 120°F, but heat it to a higher temp if you want.
Remember, the ham is already cooked, so you’re not cooking it here, you’re just heating it. If you are working with a partially cooked ham, and not a ready-to-eat ham, follow the cooking directions on the package, most suggest cooking a partially cooked ham to 150°F.
Half hams are either cut from the shank end or from the butt end. The butt end may have more meat, but because of the shape of the bone at that end, is more difficult to cut. The hams pictured here are both from the shank end.
Ingredients
- One half ready-to-eat, cooked ham, bone-in, shank end or butt end, about 9-11 pounds
Sweet Hot Honey Mustard Glaze
- 3 Tbsp sweet hot honey mustard (or brown mustard with honey)
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- About 50 cloves
OR
Honey Thyme Glaze
- 3 Tbsp melted butter
- 2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme (or 2 teaspoons dry)
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Honey Thyme Glaze adapted from Gourmet
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