Imagine your perfect Christmas spread. Is it a table full of potatoes (au gratin or scalloped are our preferred), some hearty veggies (our Brussels sprout salad or our winter panzanella are tops over here), dinner rolls, ham… Yep, ours too, with one caveat: While we can all get behind the sides (and the Christmas COOKIES), when it comes to the main event, our team is surprisingly split.
Some Delish editors say a spiral ham is the only one to buy, while others swear by a smoked whole ham and say that scoring it yourself will yield the juiciest meat. And then there’s the question of which glaze is the most classic, with everything from cherry bourbon to brown sugar on the table. Why is it so hard to find a definitive answer to which ham is the BEST ham?
Turns out, the answer lies in your preferences. It’s just as much about what you’re doing with your ham day-of as it is what you’d like to do with your leftover ham. Whether you’re in it for the perfect forkful on Christmas Eve or just the best-ever post-holiday ham sandwich, we’ve got all the info you need here to make an exceptional baked ham—even if you’ve never cooked one before. Let’s get started!
How To Bake A Whole Ham
How To Cook A Spiral Ham
The 6 Best Holiday Hams You Can Order Online
50 Best Ways To Use Leftover Ham
So, What Is Baked Ham?
Baked ham comes from the leg of the pig. You can buy it in three main categories: pre-cooked (that of Honey Baked Ham fame), partially cooked, and uncooked.
Pre-cooked hams are safe to eat without reheating, but you’ll likely want to warm it in the oven and serve your ham hot. Expect your ham to take about 20 to 25 minutes per pound at 325°.
Partially-cooked hams should not be eaten without fully cooking to 145° first. We highly recommend using a probe thermometer to check, once before your glaze goes on (aiming for at least 125°), and once again to make sure your ham has reached 145° by the end of cooking.
Uncooked hams typically come with the skin still on and are almost always sold bone-in. These are easier to find at your local butcher rather than a grocery store. The same temperature rules apply, though they will likely take much longer to cook (or to smoke).
Bone-in and boneless half hams are the most common options at supermarkets around major holidays, so we focused on those types in our ham recipes. Increasing in popularity, quarter hams are great for smaller gatherings, if you can find them. They’re the best way to guarantee you won’t end up with pounds of leftover meat.
Unsure what brand of ham to buy? Here are our six favorite hams.
To Spiral, Or Not To Spiral—That IS The Question
When talking to team Delish about hams, this was the biggest point of contention…and confusion. Turns out, you’ve really got to weigh what’s important to you: ease and convenience or flavor and aesthetics. Here’s what I found out:
If you’re looking for the easiest, beginner-friendly ham, you’ve gotta go spiral. Rather than a whole ham, which can be difficult to slice, spiral hams are usually pre-cooked and pre-sliced, meaning once you glaze it and heat it, you’ll have lovely, even slices (more akin to what you’d get from a deli), without a ton of work.
That said, if you want to control your slices and get the best flavor, scoring a whole ham so the glaze can really permeate the meat is the way to go. It’s also a good way to guarantee those delicious thick slices that are as great at your holiday dinner as they are for sandwiching between a hearty baguette with some hefty cheese.
The Art of the Glaze
Anyone who’s ever had a glorious (or terrible) ham knows that the glaze can make or break it. When well done, a glaze forms a beautiful, caramel-like crust that perfectly contrasts a ham’s inherent saltiness, turning your large roast into something exceptional. When done less well, it can be thick, overly-sweet, and just too fruity. While we do think you should include a sweet ingredient, you can play with adding a little acidity and other flavors to keep it from being overly sugary.
Our classic ham glaze recipe is made up of just four ingredients—apple cider, apple cider vinegar, packed brown sugar, and Dijon mustard—but it’s not the be-all, end-all of options. We’ve also got a pineapple-glazed ham, a cherry bourbon ham, a Dr. Pepper-glazed ham…the sky’s kind of the limit, so feel free to get creative.
39 Delicious Ham Recipes To Make Your Holiday Meals The Best Ever
What to Know Before You Bake
1. Cook it low and slow. This ensures that the meat doesn’t dry out as your ham spends at least a couple hours in the oven. The ideal temperature to cook at is 325°, and for a bone-in half ham it will take 20 to 25 minutes per pound to cook at that low of a temperature.
2. Create a steamy environment. This will keep your meat moist and prevent it from drying out. You’ll need a large roasting pan and rack. Pour water in the bottom of the pan to help steam the ham while it cooks; the rack ensures your ham will be above the water. (If you don’t have a rack, you can make do by rolling a few pieces of foil into long pieces.) Another way to ensure lots of steam: Always keep your ham covered with foil while it bakes.
3. Finish it with glaze. You might be tempted to glaze the ham sooner, but you don’t need to add a thing until the final 30 minutes of cooking. This is also the moment when you’ll remove the foil to let it caramelize.
4. Don’t crank the heat. A lot of meats do well with a nice blast of high heat when you finish cooking them to create a crust, so you might be tempted to, say, broil, ham for the final few minutes. In my one attempt at this I had dry, burnt-to-a-crisp edges. Ham lives for low temps.
5. Be careful to not overcook it (yup, that’s a thing). Most people think they can let a ham go low and slow forever, but it’s bound to dry out. If you have an oven thermometer, set it to alert you once the ham reaches 120°—glaze time! After you glaze, change the alert to 145°, which is the final internal temp you are aiming for.
Don’t Forget the Condiments
We’re all for homemade, but for ham, store-bought can work just as well. We like to put out a spread of something spicy, like mustard, something creamy, like garlic aioli or spicy mayo, and something sweet, like cranberry sauce or mango chutney. Try some pickled red onions or jalapeños on the side too, to add some crunch and pucker that’ll cut the saltiness of the ham.
Honey Mustard Dressing
Cranberry Sauce
Spicy Mayo
