This spiral ham is coated in a homemade brown sugar glaze, then baked in the oven to tender and juicy perfection. A simple way to prepare ham that’s both easy and elegant. You’ll be sure to get rave reviews from family and friends!
When I’m looking for a holiday meal that’s sure to impress, I turn to favorites such as Thanksgiving turkey, slow roasted prime rib, or this delicious and festive spiral ham.
Whenever the holidays roll around, I always keep a spiral ham in my fridge for a flavorful meal that’s perfect for feeding a crowd. The homemade glaze takes this ham over the top and turns a regular packaged ham into a gourmet dinner.
Enjoy this spiral ham for Thanksgiving, Easter or Christmas with holiday favorites like corn souffle, sausage stuffing and broccoli casserole!
Spiral Ham Ingredients
This spiral ham recipe requires a spiral cut ham, butter, brown sugar, pineapple juice, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Spiral Cut Ham: Choose a pre-cooked, bone in, spiral cut ham for this recipe. Look for a ham that is about 8 pounds.
- Pineapple Juice: This juice give the glaze a tangy and delicious flavor. If you can find refrigerated pineapple juice it will be better.
- Honey: The sweetness of the glaze is from a mixture of brown sugar and honey. The honey helps the glaze thicken so you can pour it slowly over the ham and cover it well.
How Do You Make Spiral Ham?
Start this spiral ham recipe by preheating your oven and coating your baking dish with cooking spray. Next make the glaze. In a medium sized pan place butter, brown sugar, honey, spices and pineapple juice. Simmer everything together until you get a thick and sweet glaze.
Place your ham in the baking dish and pour half the glaze over your ham. Cover the ham with aluminum foil. Bake the ham until it is warmed through.
Uncover the pan, then pour the rest of the glaze over the top of the ham. Turn up the oven heat, then bake the ham for a few more minutes until it is browned and caramelized. Cut the ham slices off the bone, then serve and enjoy.
Tips For The Perfect Dish
- You can make this glaze in a frying pan, sauté pan or a saucepan. Just make sure it is large enough so the glaze won’t bubble onto your stove.
- Forget a glaze packet, you won’t need it with this spiral cut ham recipe!
- Prepare the glaze just before you plan to use it. The glaze will harden in the fridge if you make it in advance. If your glaze thickens too much, you can microwave it for 20-30 seconds to loosen it back up again.
- If you want to make your spiral ham in a slow cooker, check out my crock pot ham!
- Leftover ham will stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or can be frozen for 2 months. Reheat individual portions of ham in the microwave, or place a covered pan in the oven and reheat at 325 degrees F until ham slices are warmed through.
Quick Tip
Aim for an internal temperature of 145 degrees F. You can insert a probe meat thermometer into the thickest part of the ham before it goes into the oven to keep an eye on the temperature as it cooks.
Recipe FAQs
The main difference between a spiral ham and a regular ham is the way they are cut. A spiral ham is sliced in one long, continuous cut which ends up being a spiral around the ham. The ham is still attached to the bone, but is separated into slices of equal thickness. A spiral ham is super easy to cut and serve, because all you have to do is cut the slices away from the bone. I use this type of ham for the holidays because it feeds a lot of people and is so effortless to prepare.
A ham needs to cook for about 15 minutes per pound in the oven at 350 degrees F. This is for a standard bone-in spiral cut ham around 7-8 pounds in size. While this recipe calls for a 8 pound ham, you can adjust the recipe for a larger or smaller piece of meat by simply changing the cook time accordingly. If you’re using a much larger ham, you can double the glaze amount.
I recommend purchasing 3/4 pound of ham per person. This will ensure that everyone is well fed! If you’d like to make sure that you have plenty of leftovers, count on buying 1 pound of ham per person.
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Flavor Variations
This spiral ham makes for a delicious holiday meal, but you can change the flavors to suit your taste.
- Spices: Feel free to add warm spices to the glaze such as ground ginger, ground cloves or ground allspice.
- Juice: You can swap out the pineapple juice for apple juice, apple cider or orange juice.
- Sweet: You can substitute some of the honey for maple syrup. It will thin the glaze, but you will have a delicious flavor!
- Leftovers: Use leftover ham for recipes like scalloped potatoes and ham, ham casserole and ham and corn chowder.
I make this spiral ham all the time during the holiday season and for good reason – it’s absolutely delicious each and every time!
Side Dishes To Pair With Ham
Southern Cornbread Dressing
1 hr 15 mins
Baked Mac and Cheese
50 mins
Cranberry Salad
11 mins
Candied Yams Recipe
55 mins
Crock Pot Mashed Potatoes
4 hrs 20 mins
Spiral Ham Video
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Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
Spiral Ham with Brown Sugar Glaze
Ingredients
- 8 lb bone in spiral cut ham
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup pineapple juice
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- cooking spray
- fresh herbs and fruit for garnish optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a large baking dish with cooking spray.
- Add the butter, brown sugar, pineapple juice, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg to a medium sized pan. Place the pan over medium heat.
- Bring the pan to a simmer and cook for 4-6 minutes or until glaze is syrupy.
- Place the ham in the baking dish and pour half of the glaze over the top. Cover the ham tightly with foil. Reserve the other half of the glaze for later use.
- Bake the ham for 2 hours, then uncover the ham.
- Brush the remaining glaze over the ham. If the glaze has started to harden you can liquefy it by microwaving it for 30 seconds.
- Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees F.
- Place the ham, uncovered, in the oven. Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until glaze is caramelized and browned.
- Transfer the ham to a serving platter, then garnish with fresh herbs and fruit as desired. Spoon the pan drippings over the ham. Slice the ham, then serve.
Notes
- Aim for an internal temperature of 145 degrees F. You can insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the ham before it goes into the oven to can keep an eye on the temperature as it cooks.
- Prepare the glaze just before you plan to use it. The glaze will harden in the fridge if you make it in advance. If your glaze thickens too much, you can microwave it for 20-30 seconds to loosen it back up again.
I’m planning to try this for thanksgiving but our family does not like spiral hams, so I always get a normal, bone in uncut ham. I’m guess I would not need to make any changes to the recipe? Other than score the ham?
Just score the ham and you’ll be good!
Can this be cooked in a crock pot?
Here is my crock pot ham recipe! https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/crock-pot-ham/
My ham is frozen, how many days do you think it will take to thaw out? This recipe calls for a thawed ham, correct?
This recipe calls for a thawed ham. You can thaw an 8 pound ham in the fridge for about 48 hours.
Saving this for Thanksgiving. A few of my guests are not fans of Turkey so I am going to serve this as well. Recipe looks perfect
This spiral ham was so flavorful and delicious! The pineapple juice with all those spices were outstanding!
This ham looks absolutely perfect! Going on our Christmas dinner menu for sure!
This glaze is absolutely out of this world!! This was a hit, and everyone in our house loved munching on leftover ham cold, straight from the fridge. It’s just THAT good.
This glaze was so good on the ham! We loved it on the leftover ham too! I will use this again in the future!
Your recipe saved the day and my dinner!!! Thank you. Bought a ham with a glaze packet a local grocery store. Tasted the glaze packet before I poured it on the ham and it was horrible – all clove. Burned your mouth. Quickly went on Pinterest for a glaze recipe and all I could find were recipes with clove. After what I had just tasted, I wanted to avoid anything with clove. Then I found yours. Put your glaze recipe together (had to sub apple juice for the pineapple) but it was still delicious. Turned out great. Raves from everyone. Making your recipe again for Christmas Eve dinner. Definitely a keeper!
Thanks. This is so very creative . My family to relish this yummy Spiral Ham with this amazing glaze. Delicious..
I really like that you glaze the ham with this flavor combination. It sounds perfect for ham.
This ham looks so gorgeous, especially with that sweet glaze!! Will definitely be adding this to our Thanksgiving menu this year!
You had me at 10 minutes of prep time! This spiral ham with brown sugar glaze was so flavourful, my whole family loved it. Thank you!
What a delicious glaze for the ham! Perfect year round as well as the holiday season. This recipe’s a keeper.
Ive only enjoyed ham once in my life until i made your glaze. The carmelization was so so delicious on the ham. No issues in timor cooking the glaze. Didn’t have any juice. Used Bragg’s apple cider vinegar. It’s the best. You’d think i bought it at Honey baked ham Thank you for posting this. Made me a believer 😉
This was so easy to make! Loved the flavors and the glaze was just perfect!
On my Christmas dinner list! The glaze is so yummy!
This looks so perfect! Typically we do turkey on Thanksgiving but I think am gonna make this one (this year). So shiny and glossy, too! I definitely love the idea of brown sugar glaze!👍🏾
My go-to ham recipe here! This is so easy to make and comes out perfect… and the glaze is perfection! Thanks for the great recipe!
What a gorgeous ham. You make it look so incredibly easy. I hope Costco get the hams in soon. I would like to try this before the holidays.