Honey Glazed Baked Ham

Many of us stopped trying to bake ham for Christmas because it ended up dried and flavorless. Plus, it was stressful to do the baking for the night. But that’s maybe before we had easy-to-follow recipes like this one.

Here’s a honey glazed baked ham recipe for you to try on Christmas or any other special occasion. This time, your guests will be delighted with the flavor and texture of your ham. This recipe is mainly to give extra flavor to your ham. Still, we will also share thoughts and recommendations to prevent the ham from drying on the inside.

Honey Glazed Baked Ham recipe, step by step

This recipe will make your ham taste much better, and it is easy to do. To make it simple, we’re using ready-to-eat ham. In the next section, we’re giving you recommendations to obtain a juicy texture if you cook fresh ham on your own. Here’s how it will look like after baking:

Do you want this honey glazed baked ham on your table? Here’s the step-by-step:

Step 1: Boil water and prepare the equipment for a water bath

What you need is a pot to boil water and a heat-resistant glass or dedicated equipment for the water bath. When the water is boiling, and the glass starts to heat, you can begin with step 2.

Step 2: Add the ingredients of the honey glaze

You need only three ingredients to prepare this honey glaze. They are ¼ cup of dark corn syrup, 2 cups of honey, and 2/3 cups of butter. Add them all to the water bath when the water is boiling underneath.

Step 3: Mix until homogeneous

Mix the honey glaze ingredients on the water bath until you get a homogeneous mix.

Step 4: Make shallow cuts in ready-to-eat ham

In this step, we are using ready-to-eat ham. You can find this type of ham in supermarkets with the label ready-to-eat, smoked, or pre-cooked. Take one unit, which is around 5 pounds, and perform shallow cuts all over the meat’s surface in two directions. This technique is known as scoring the skin, and it helps to penetrate the flavor in the deepest layers of meat.

Step 5: Place whole cloves in the cuts all over the ham

Take ¼ cup of whole cloves and place them all over the ham, sticking them in the shallow cuts you just made.

Step 6: Take the ham to a baking tray and brush the honey glaze

Now it’s time to take the ham to the baking tray. We recommend covering the baking tray with baking paper and brushing the honey glaze with a pastry brush.

Step 7: Take to the oven

Your ham is now ready for the oven. Set the temperature to 325ºF or 165ºC and program the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Step 8: Cut in portions and serve

When the time is over, take out the ham, and you’ll be ready to cut it in slices and serve.

How to bake juicy ham?

But what if you don’t find ready-to-eat ham for this honey glazed baked ham recipe? When you’re buying ham in the supermarket, there are different labels, and sometimes we have no idea what they mean. Here’s a helpful table to help you purchase ham by looking at these labels.

Label	What it means
Pre-cooked, ready-to-eat, smoked	This ham can be eaten without cooking. You can also heat to 140ºF
Uncooked, cook before eating, fresh, raw	This ham is not cooked and requires full cooking before eating
Natural juices	Ham prepared with natural pork juices
Water added	Ham prepared with added water

Maybe you want to take care of fresh ham, instead of relying on pre-cooked options. If that’s the case, you want to cook juicy ham instead of dried out and flavorless ham. Juicy ham will look like this:

If you have raw ham and want to make it juicy, first, you need to take it out of the fridge and let the ham reach room temperature. Meanwhile, preheat the oven. You can set it up to 350 ºF.

Score the skin making shallow cuts all over, and then rub a mix of olive oil, salt, thyme, pepper, garlic, and rosemary in the meat. Take the meat to the oven in a roasting pan and set it for 3 hours.

Every hour you want to turn the meat to the other side, and every 30 minutes, you want to bathe the meat with the same mix, once again. When you’re done, take the meat out and let it rest covered in aluminum foil for 30 minutes.

After doing this, your ham will be baked and ready to eat. More important, it will be juicy and will have the right texture.