I love a good, juicy ham on Easter and Christmas (and any day in between). Too often the hams we’ve had are dry, expensive and sickeningly sweet, even when we bought the high-priced, big name hams from the ham store. It’s enough to make a person sit down and cry into her taters. Therefore, we took it upon ourselves to find the cheapest, tastiest method of preparing ham that we could…just for you. You’re welcome.
How to Bake a Ham – A Simple Guide
What do I need?
- a ham
- pan
- one cup water (optional)
- aluminum foil
- meat thermometer
- oven
- optional ingredients for an optional sauce – ours only requires brown sugar and a sauce pan
Which ham should I buy?
The most convenient ham is, naturally, the spiral-sliced. Our experience with spiral cut, however, is that they dry out very easily. Because they are already cut, the heat has more surface area from which to draw moisture. Nothing can prevent moisture loss to some extent, not even the reams of aluminum foil we use to try and prevent its drying out.
For that reason, we buy unsliced ham, which, to our delight, is cheaper. I like the shank, because it is often the cheapest of all and not too difficult to slice. You can also grab yourself a nice butt which will work just as well for the same price or just a few pennies a pound more, depending on your store. According to our old butcher, the shank and butt are essentially the whole ham (which is the leg) chopped in half to form the separate cuts. With such little difference, I go for whichever is cheaper. (Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about ham cuts.)
Watch for a sale around the major holidays and you’ll really score big with your ol’ pigskin.
How do I cook the ham?
- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Put the ham in a pretty (okay, so it doesn’t have to be pretty) roasting pan with the bone side down, fat side up.
- Add one cup of water to the pan. (Some experts say not to do this, but I do it…so there, experts!)
- Cover it completely with aluminum foil. But aluminum foil will kill you! I know, but this ham is so juicy, you’ll die happy.
- Cook to the proper temperature as explained below, and immediately remove it from the oven.
- Let the ham rest covered for 20 minutes or so before slicing, so the juices redistribute throughout the ham.
How long do I cook the ham?
If the ham is pre-cooked, heat it to an internal temperature of 110-140 (Fahrenheit) and pull it from the oven, depending on how warm you want your ham. (If it’s fully cooked, you can theoretically eat it cold.)
If the ham is not pre-cooked or only partially cooked, heat it to 150-155 (Fahrenheit) and pull immediately. I know the meat police say 160, but it will continue cooking 5-10 degrees after you pull it. I pull at 150. If you wait for 160, you may have a dry ham. You’ve been warned.
Use a meat thermometer! Insert it well into the meat, but not touching the bone. if you don’t have a meat thermometer and you cook meat, buy one. If you don’t want to buy one, you’ll be cooking roughly 20-30 minutes per pound, but I won’t guarantee that your stove doesn’t run hot and that you won’t be eating a football. In that case, I wash my hands of your ham.
This is my meat thermometer:
You can buy one here.
What do I do about a glaze?
I won’t even go there! Okay, maybe just a little. There are as many ham glaze recipes out there as there are cooks to prepare them. Personally, I don’t like to be knocked out by an overwhelming shot of sugar, bourbon, cloves, or pineapple when all I really want is a nice big mouthful of meat. I want to taste the ham! Is that so wrong?!
Are you with me? It’s okay if you’re not, because you can do a quick search on any recipe site for half a gazillion glazes. Here are 68 glaze recipes from my favorite recipe site, AllRecipes.com. Read the reviews and pick your favorite…but might I recommend you keep it simple?
Because my husband likes the option of a subtle sweetness with his ham, and others in my family like the option of eating ham without going into a diabetic coma, this is the method he whipped up:
The Simple Homemaker’s Husband’s Simple Ham Sauce
- Pour the pan drippings into a saucepan.
- Add 1/4 cup or so of brown sugar or honey (depending on how sweet you want it and how much juice you have).
- Heat it on the stove stirring to dissolve the sugar or honey, and testing for the sweetness level you’re looking for.
- Adjust with water if it’s too salty or thick, and sugar or honey if you want a sweeter juice. Taste as you go and adjust gradually.
- Serve it on the side as an optional au jus.
It is simple and delicious, but doesn’t coat the ham with sugar, which many people in my family can’t (or won’t) eat.
How do I slice a non-sliced ham?
- Insert your knife parallel to the bone and cut entirely around it. (Remember, the two L’s in the word “parallel” are parallel to each other, if you forgot your basic math.)
- Slice perpendicular to the bone to make nice slices that should fall away from the bone. (You will be cutting into the length of the bone, not the end…obviously.) Do this on either side of the bone.
There will be quite a bit of meat left on the bone, just as with the store-bought spiral cuts. I like to gnaw on this when nobody’s looking remove this meat later with a small knife and use it for any number of recipes needing diced ham, including scrambled eggs, bean or potato soups, fried rice, quiche, breakfast potatoes, salad.
Save the bone and toss it into a soup, crock of beans, or pot of jambalaya.
Here’s the boring printable version of how to bake a ham:
- a ham
- pan
- one cup water (optional)
- aluminum foil
- meat thermometer
- oven
- optional ingredients for an optional sauce – ours only requires brown sugar and a sauce pan
- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Put the ham in a pretty (okay, so it doesn’t have to be pretty) roasting pan with the bone side down, fat side up.
- Add one cup of water to the pan. (Some experts say not to do this, but I do it…so there, experts!)
- Cover it completely with aluminum foil. But aluminum foil will kill you! I know, but this ham is so juicy, you’ll die happy.
- Cook to 150 using a meat thermometer if your ham is uncooked or partially cooked. If it’s fully cooked, warm it to your desired temperature, but no warmer than 140 or you may dry it out. Blech.
- Immediately remove it from the oven.
- Let the ham rest covered for 20 minutes or so before slicing, so the juices redistribute throughout the ham.
- Remove the drippings to a saucepan over low heat. Stir in 1/4 cup brown sugar or honey, taste, and add more if desired to sweeten the juices to your desired sweetness. Serve on the side so everybody is happy!
I hope your ham turns out as juicy and delicious (and affordable) as ours! Good luck!
Let me know what you think, including your best pointers on how to bake a ham…a simple ham.
But if you talk about scoring the outside in cross hatches, stuffing cloves all over, dousing it in bourbon, and then adding pineapple and maraschino cherries, I’ll know you didn’t really read this post and don’t embrace my “simple” philosophy. (Wink.)
I’m embarrassed to admit that I have no pictures of our own hams. Years of ham baking and experimentation, and nothing to show for it but full tummies. Special thanks to all the photographers credited above…but our hams look juicier. A-hem.
Thank you! I was searching for how to bake a ham without using a glaze. It has been years since I cooked a ham so I just needed to know the basics. This was just what I was looking for.
Wonderful! I’m glad to help. I don’t like to put a glaze on my ham either. I prefer my sugar be in the form of pie or a cookie. 😉
Just what I was looking for, we don’t like all of the sweet hams that are served.
This was the best ham I ever made! It’s always hit or miss with me and hams. Made this a few months ago. Making it again today. Crossing my fingers that it turns out just as good.
I’m so excited that you liked it! Thank you for telling me. I’m giddy! 🙂
I could not find where to start a comment so I randomly pick this one to reply to, lol. Bless you for all your sacrifices wading through bad hams, your perseverance and full tummies to get to the land of affordable juicy hams. I am so very grateful. On instinct I was thinking along the lines of water and a foil jiffy-pop style wrap to make my first homegrown ham for my husband’s lunch meat, sans the sweet, but I was so unsure if I was going to do everything all wrong and he would be forced into eating shoe leather for weeks. He works too hard for our family to leave it to chance. So not only did I feel a hallelujah moment if validation that I was not as dumb as a box of rocks and foil turbans + water make juice, but also the sheer brilliance of laying bone side down so all the flavor filled fat can drizzle down to season the meat. And then the option for a so very simple gaze for those, that’s me that wants the sweet sauce. Well I just have to say you thought of everything I would ever exactly want to know. Thank you for your brilliance, easy to follow amazing recipe, ham is in the oven right now, I have no doubts it will turn out as advertised. Thank you for being you, keep the information coming ♥️
Love your writing style!!
Thank you. I’ve gone through almost 10 pounds of sugar the past two weeks. We have cookies, pies, and a million other ways to help us all,get diabetes. Your ham was exactly what I wanted. Ham! Just wonderful, juicy ham! Thank you!
Thank you thank you thank you! Due to being traumatized by being forced to eat an overly sweetened, cloved, pineappled, cherried ham when I was a little kid, I can’t bear to eat ham that’s coated in that kind of stuff. Which means I haven’t eaten much ham over the years, and never tried to make one. But I was asked to bring a ham to a family gathering and had no idea how to make one – this recipe looks perfect. Thank you!
Just wanted to say…a big THANK YOU!!
Making my hams this way is delicious!! I have made more hams this way in the last 6 months then in my entire life! That would be 70 years. 😳 This is a easy peasy way to make a delicious ham, and tender oh my goodness.
And I repeat, do not, do not ever buy a sliced ham again!! They dry out and you will be so disappointed.
I do not do any glaze – don’t care for all the sweet.
Thank you!
When you say cover the ham, do you mean wrap?
i glaze my ham with marmalade and a can of coco cola or pepsi very good
I am so happy to find this recipe! It is years that I have wanted to make a ham but we are not into sweet meat and my husband is prediabetic so I can’t have a glaze with brown sugar etc. Finally I bought a shank on sale and convinced myself I would bake it. Can’t wait to try this recipe. Doesn’t seem so scary anymore and I love the idea of just a meat taste. Thanks.
How long (minutes/pound) do you cook an uncooked ham? I am doing it for Thanksgiving instead of a turkey and I need to know how long it takes to get up to 140 degrees – otherwise my ham will be under cooked or dry because I had to let it warm for too long.
Thank you SO MUCH for the simple way to cook a ham. Every thing I clicked on was Spiral! And glazed ! I’m not Suzy homemaker here and I just wanted tips and temperature for a basic ham. And yes I did buy a spiral one year (many moons ago) and it was dry. My fiance says it all the time when I go buy a ham..”don’t get one of those spiral hams. Thank you for liking a ham just the way I like it too.
WHAT SIZE HAM FOR 14 PEOPLE
Thank you, I was tired of spiral glazed ham for holidays, I agree, they dry out, are pretty useless for leftovers and cost $$$. This year I bought a plain, uncut ham which I used to do years ago. I do like the side sauce idea, in case someone wants it. Off to the kitchen I go…Thanks again