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If you love the sweet, caramelized flavor of a classic honey baked ham, you’ll be amazed how easy it is to recreate that iconic holiday centerpiece at home. This Homemade Honey Baked Ham recipe delivers tender, juicy spiral-cut ham coated in a rich honey brown sugar glaze with warm spices and a perfectly crisp, crackly caramelized crust.
Instead of spending a fortune at specialty ham shops, you can make a restaurant-quality honey baked ham in your own kitchen with simple ingredients and a foolproof method. Whether you’re hosting Easter dinner, Christmas, or a special family gathering, this ham turns any meal into a cozy celebration.
Don’t want all the extras in a recipe post? We provide a skip to recipe button in the top left corner, as well as a clickable table of contents, just below, to help make this page easier to navigate.
At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. My goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
Table of Contents
How to Make Honey Ham
Ham is the most universally liked holiday food, you can’t go wrong with it. Serve it with some Parker House rolls, and you’re set for a delicious holiday dinner!
I love this, not just for the meal itself but leftover ham is great for sandwiches, salads, and soups. Be sure to bookmark our Easy Ham and Cheese Sliders Recipe and our Cheesy Ham and Mashed Potato Casserole for leftovers! Be sure to bookmark our Easy Ham and Cheese Sliders Recipe for all those delicious ham leftovers!
Honey Baked Ham Ingredients
First assemble the following ingredients:
- Spiral cut ham (7–8 pounds) – A spiral-sliced ham is pre-cut for easy serving and allows the sweet, spiced glaze to seep into every slice while baking.
- Butter (2 tablespoons, melted) – Melted butter adds richness and helps create a silky glaze that coats the ham and enhances its savory flavor.
- Honey (? cup) – Honey brings natural sweetness and a glossy finish while helping the glaze caramelize beautifully in the oven.
- Light brown sugar (1 cup) – Light brown sugar provides deep molasses sweetness that balances the salty ham and forms a sticky, caramelized glaze.
- Fresh grated nutmeg (½ teaspoon) – Fresh nutmeg adds a warm, slightly sweet spice that complements the sweetness of the glaze and the savory ham.
- Grated cloves (½ teaspoon) – Cloves contribute a bold, aromatic spice with classic holiday flavor that pairs perfectly with ham.
- Cinnamon (½ teaspoon) – Cinnamon brings gentle warmth and subtle sweetness that enhances the overall cozy spice profile of the glaze.
- Smoked paprika (½ teaspoon) – Smoked paprika adds a hint of smoky depth that balances the sweetness and enhances the ham’s savory flavor.
- Aleppo or cayenne pepper (½ teaspoon, optional) – Aleppo or cayenne pepper adds a mild heat that creates a delicious sweet-and-spicy contrast in the glaze.
- Ginger (¼ teaspoon) – Ground ginger adds a bright, warm spice that helps round out the sweetness and deepen the glaze’s flavor.
- Allspice (¼ teaspoon) – Allspice contributes a warm blend of clove-like, cinnamon-like notes that enhance the glaze with rich holiday spice complexity.
Steps to Make Baked Ham
Once you have assembled the ingredients, use this method.
Prep
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a roasting pan with foil (optional, but makes cleanup much easier), and place roasting rack inside.
Topping
Remove spiral ham from packaging, remove any wrapping material, and pat dry. In a medium sized pan, mix together butter and honey, melting on medium heat, whisking until melted and well combined. Pour over ham, making sure to get all over and brush into crevaces and ridges. Cover ham with foil.
Bake
Bake in oven for about 1 hour and 45 minutes, until your ham reaches 140 degrees internal temperature. Set oven temperature to 450 and let preheat. In a small bowl, mix together sugar and spices. Set half in a bowl to use as a run over the ham, and place half in a small pot to heat on the stove as a glaze.
Bake Again
Bake additional 5-8 minutes, until bubbly and hot. You can broil if you like, but we prefer baking. Bake until glaze is golden, ham is fully cooked so this is just to get your ideal amount of crunch! In small pot, whisk together sugar, spices, and ham drippings or fat (if your ham didn’t give off enough drippings or liquid, add 2-4 tbsp butter), and melt, stirring frequently to mix. Glaze.
Honey Ham Tips and Tricks
Keep your ham covered. We bake our spiral ham covered in foil to keep the heat in and moving and keep the ham from drying out.
Pick a quality ham. We use bone-in, high quality hams because starting with a delicious, quality meat makes all the difference – using a tough, salty, and processed tasting ham will give you tough, processed, salty Honey Baked ham!
Brush the glaze on multiple times while baking.
Layering the glaze throughout the cooking process builds deep flavor and helps create that signature caramelized coating.
Use a rack in your roasting pan.
Elevating the ham allows hot air to circulate evenly around the meat so it heats uniformly and stays juicy.
Caramelize the sugar crust carefully.
Finishing the ham with a broiler or torch helps create the signature crackly honey baked crust without burning the glaze.
Tent loosely with foil if the ham browns too quickly.
If the sugar glaze starts darkening too fast, loosely cover the ham with foil to prevent over-caramelization.
Let the ham rest before slicing.
Allowing the ham to sit for about 10 minutes helps the juices redistribute so every slice stays moist.
What to serve with this Honey Baked Ham Recipe
We love serving holiday ham with Brown Butter Bacon Baked Brussels Sprouts, The Best Yeast Rolls, Crispy Roasted Potatoes, Cherry Danish Cheesecake Bars, Traditional French Vin Chaud (Mulled Wine), Mulled Citrus Cider and The Best Oven Roasted Garlic Parmesan Asparagus!
You can find some of our recent favorite side dishes below:
For the rest of our side dishes, please visit our complete side dish recipe index here.
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Baked Honey Ham
Ingredients
- 1 half spiral cut ham, (7-8 pounds)
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- ⅓ cup honey
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg, fresh grated
- ½ teaspoon cloves, grated
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon aleppo or cayenne pepper, optional* (for a sweet heat, if you prefer a bit of a kick)
- ¼ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line a roasting pan with foil (optional, but makes cleanup much easier), and place roasting rack inside.
- Remove spiral ham from packaging, remove any wrapping material, and pat dry.
- In a medium sized pan, mix together butter and honey, melting on medium heat, whisking until melted and well combined.
- Pour over ham, making sure to get all over and brush into crevaces and ridges. Cover ham with foil.
- Bake in oven for about 1 hour and 45 minutes, until your ham reaches 140 degrees internal temperature (be sure to not hit the bone of your spiral ham when measuring temperature.)
- Remove from oven, remove foil, and set aside. Drain off any fat or drippings from ham, and set aside for glaze.
- Set oven temperature to 450 and let preheat.
- In a small bowl, mix together sugar and spices. Set half in a bowl to use as a run over the ham, and place half in a small pot to heat on the stove as a glaze.
- Sprinkle half of the sugar and spice mixture – the half to be used as a rub- carefully to prevent burning your hands, over ham, making sure it is evenly coated in sugar and spice rub, and return to oven.
- Bake additional 5-8 minutes, until bubbly and hot. You can broil if you like, but we prefer baking. Bake until glaze is golden, ham is fully cooked so this is just to get your ideal amount of crunch!
- In small pot, whisk together sugar, spices, and ham drippings or fat (if your ham didn't give off enough drippings or liquid, add 2-4 tbsp butter), and melt, stirring frequently to mix.
- Let glaze thicken and reduce by half. Remove from heat and serve with ham.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Baked Honey Ham FAQs
Cook spiral ham to 140 degrees internal temperature. Spiral hams come already smoked, so we’re heating the ham all of the way through, and cooking the glaze onto the ham.
Cooking a spiral ham will be about 2 hours.
We’re baking spiral ham at 325 degrees Fahrenheit – this will help our ham cook quickly without drying out or cooking the glaze too quickly so that it burns.
Thanks for this, I like to do my own ham too. I use pineapple juice instead of honey, I find the honey too sweet, I am going to try your spices. I do it in a roaster on the table, comes out nice & juicy, & so yummy. Love your recipes, Gail Wilson.