Brown Sugar Mustard Glazed Ham Recipe

Alongside our Churro Nutella Christmas Tree and our Garlic Herb Butter Roast Turkey, this Brown Sugar Mustard Glazed Ham recipe is one of our absolute favourite Christmas dishes.

BAKED HAM

More often than not, trying to bake a ham at home for Christmas results in a dry, bland tasting ham creating more stress than it’s worth. Well, I’m here to prove that you don’t have to be intimidated by baked ham! We like to think that we have perfected the art of Christmas ham after banging out our classic Maple Glazed Ham and Honey Baked Ham to raving reviews. That’s we decided to concoct a fool-proof baked ham recipe which is guaranteed to provide you with delicious, juicy results. Follow this recipe and you will have the perfect salty, sweet ham with charred, crispy edges and a mouth-watering glaze to serve your friends and family for Christmas.

HOW TO MAKE GLAZE FOR HAM

The best glaze for a baked ham will usually contain either honey, brown sugar or maple syrup. The saltiness of the ham and the sweetness of the glaze complement each other perfectly. All three of these ingredients give-off a dark, syrupy consistency which works perfectly as a glaze. For this glaze, I went for a combination of butter, brown sugar, honey, crushed garlic cloves and dijon mustard, giving the glaze a tangy kick. From here, you’re free to improvise if you’d like to continue adding flavours. You can add spices like traditional ground cinnamon or ground cloves. If that’s not your thing, leave them out. Most recipes call for decorating the ham with whole cloves between each cut. Personally, I didn’t appreciate chewing on hidden cloves every few bites; however, you can add them if you wish. I believe this brown sugar mustard glazed ham has enough flavour without the addition of cloves, but each to their own!

HOW TO COOK GLAZED HAM

Believe it or not, the perfect ham only requires three steps:

Remove rind –- so easy, you can peel it off! Baste ham with a super easy Brown Sugar Mustard Glaze Bake, basting every 15 minutes!

WHAT IS THE BEST CUT OF HAM TO BAKE?

For the tastiest results, aim for a fully cooked bone-in ham. When cooking our brown sugar mustard glazed ham, we went for a ‘half leg’. To be more specific, we used the shank end of the leg. The other type of ‘half leg’ which is the butt end (shaped like a dome), contains part of the hip bone and is harder to carve. It has less meat, although it’s very tender and packs a lot of flavour. If you want value for your money, go for the type I have pictured here.

HAM RIND ON OR OFF?

For some reason, this is the most controversial step — taking the rind off. In testing with the rind still on, I found the rind became chewy and gummy as the ham cooled and tough to eat. Also, the glaze flavours stopped at the rind with no flavours seeping into the fleshy part of the ham. For this reason, I suggest trimming the rind off. Fully cooked ham rind does not crisp. We tried broiling, baking at high heat and deep frying.

HOW TO REMOVE HAM RIND

When you buy your ham, you’ll notice right underneath the rind there is a gorgeous layer of fat. DON’T trim this away. This fat melds with your glaze and turns into a beautiful crispy, sticky coating and is DIVINE. Removing ham rind: For a full video demonstration, head to the bottom of the blog. Once your ham is in the oven, it’s time to get started on your glaze.

TIPS FOR THE BEST GLAZED HAM

My biggest piece of advice is not to simmer the glaze for too long, as you will end up with a hard caramel once it begins to cool. It also becomes extremely difficult to slather onto the outside of the ham when glazing. You want to bring it to a gentle simmer and take it off the heat quickly. I added the pan juices from the ham into the glaze once there were pan juices to use, and WOW! My ham wasn’t salty though, so make sure you do some taste testing before adding the juices and add however much you need to achieve your preferred flavour.

HOW TO BASTE A HAM

Glaze, baste, baste some more and glaze. GO NUTS with it. The more the merrier, and ’tis the season, right? I wish smell-ernet was a thing because this brown sugar mustard glazed ham smells unbelievable!

My favourite part is slicing through my glazed ham like butter and watching the juices burst out with each slice. THERE’S NO DRY HAM HERE!

Happy Holidays everyone!

WHAT TO SERVE WITH GLAZED HAM

Whether you’re making this for yourself or bringing it to a holiday gathering, these side dishes will complete your lunch or dinner: Garlic Parmesan Scalloped Potatoes Honey Dijon Apple Bacon Cranberry Salad Easy Soft Dinner Rolls