5-Ingredient Baked Honey Ham Recipe
- By Amy Dong
- Published Mar. 22, 2024
No need to spend a lot of money or time on your favorite holiday ham; this year, make your own version with this 5-Ingredient Baked Honey Ham Recipe. It’s ridiculously easy and always a hit.
In This Article
- Video: Watch Us Make This Recipe
- Why This Honey Baked Ham Stands Out
- Key Recipe Ingredients
- Substitutions and Variations
- Step-By-Step Recipe Instructions
- Pro Tips for success
- What to Serve With Honey Baked Ham
- Commonly Asked Questions
- Did you make this?
- 5-Ingredient Honey Baked Ham Recipe Recipe
- More to Cook and Eat
Video: Watch Us Make This Recipe
Why This Honey Baked Ham Stands Out
- So Easy: Not only is this honey baked ham unbelievably easy to make, it’s restaurant-quality ham for a fraction of the price.
- All the Occasions: Perfect for Christmas, Easter, or anytime your family craves a simple yet amazing ham.
- Affordable: This Honey Baked Ham tastes like you’ve spent much more time on it than you really did; expect requests for the recipe.
- Family and Friends: This is the easy honey ham recipe you’ll return to over an over again because your family will request it on repeat. We love it paired with this Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes or this Garlic-Butter Roasted Potatoes!
Key Recipe Ingredients
You’ll need just 5 simple ingredients for the best ham recipe:
- Brown Sugar provides a warm molasses sweetness to the sauce. Be sure to pack it down tight when measuring.
- Whole Grain Mustard, sometimes known as country style mustard, is key to the delectable honey mustard sauce. It’s not your average yellow mustard.
- Honey works together with the brown sugar to bring a tantalizing sweetness to the salty ham. This honey is my favorite, as it’s raw, unfiltered, organic, and affordable.
- Apple Cider or Juice brings a sweet acidity to the basting sauce. Be sure you’re getting sweet cider and not cider vinegar.
- Spiral-Sliced Ham is easies to use, as it will already be pre-sliced. However, you can use a regular ham and slice it thinly yourself.
Tip: Here’s a tidbit about coarse ground or country style mustard, with visible mustard seeds within. It makes a notable difference in flavor. We use it for this Honey Mustard Chicken with Curry, which tastes amazing.
Substitutions and Variations
- Mustard: We highly recommend using the whole grain mustard with whole seeds, as it has the best depth of flavor, but you can also use dijon mustard or honey mustard, if you prefer.
- Ham: We’ve found spiral-sliced, bone-in ham to work really well. However, you also use boneless ham and slice it thinly yourself. Similarly, you can use a regular bone-in ham and slice it thinly prior to using in the recipe.
- Brown Sugar: You can use either light brown or dark brown sugar. Dark brown sugar will give a deeper, darker flavor and color.
- Cider/Juice: Our recipe calls for apple cider, which has more depth of flavor and sweetness than regular apple juice. However, you can use 100% apple juice if you can’t find apple cider. Please note: do not use apple cider vinegar, which is completely different from apple cider.
- Corn Starch: This honey baked ham sauce is more like an au jus, rather than a gravy, and will be thinner and juicier in texture. If you’d like your sauce thicker, make a cornstarch slurry with fully dissolved cornstarch and water. See recipe card for details.
Step-By-Step Recipe Instructions
- Make Sauce: Mix together apple cider, brown sugar, mustard, and honey in a bowl. Mix well to fully incorporate basting sauce.
- Bake: Place ham in a 13×9 or similar-sized baking dish. Coat ham with a generous amount of sauce. Bake for 60-70 minutes, basting thoroughly every 15 minutes.
For full list of ingredients and instructions, please see recipe card below.
Pro Tips for success
- Ham: Be sure to get the spiral sliced ham if you want ease of slicing; plus, the juices really sink in with the pre-sliced ham cooking in the oven.
- Sauce: Basting sauce can be made several days ahead of time and reheated when ready to use.
- Baste: Don’t skimp on the basting sessions – baste ham every 15 minutes during baking, for juicy results.
- Serving: To serve the ham slices in a dish, simply arrange the slices in your choice of serving dish and brush the sauce in between slices and on top. This ensures that every slice will be juicy and flavorful!
- Make Ahead: Do the “serving” step above, cover, and keep warm until ready to serve. Always serve with extra sauce.
What to Serve With Honey Baked Ham
Potatoes
- Smashed Potatoes (Extra Crispy!) – super fun to make and extra crispy, even better than tater tots!
- Garlic Herb Roasted Potatoes – garlicky potatoes that pair with any meal.
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes (5 Ingredients) – comes together super quick, and turns out creamy-delicious every time.
Grains
- Wild Rice Pilaf – the flavors are incredible, as are the textures and colors.
- Gluten-Free Wild Rice Stuffing – festive and delicious, a perfect pairing with ham.
- Quinoa Sweet Potato Salad – nutritious and delicious, yet easy to prepare.
Breads
- French Bread Recipe – this simple recipe makes 2 gorgeous loaves.
- Easy Sourdough Bread – rather than slicing it for sandwiches, cut it up into squares.
- How to Make Homemade Dinner Rolls – these take only about an hour!
- Parmesan Garlic Pull-Apart Bread Rolls – simple, delicious, and irresistible.
Vegetables
- Easy Roasted Vegetables Recipe – so easy and hugely flavorful.
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Butternut Squash – beautifully festive!
- Kale Brussel Sprouts Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing – pairs well with all your holiday meals.
- Best Broccoli Apple Salad – stays crispy for hours.
Commonly Asked Questions
Can I use an unsliced ham instead of a spiral-sliced ham?
For ease of slicing and basting, we do recommend using a spiral-sliced ham. However, you can also thinly slice your own ham prior to cooking.
How long do you bake ham for?
For a 4-5 pound ham, bake at 350F for 60-70 minutes or until edges are nicely browned.
What should you serve ham with?
A few favorite side dishes to serve with ham include Garlic Herb Roasted Potatoes and Best Broccoli Apple Salad.
What can I do with leftover ham?
We love using leftover diced ham in Chinese Fried Rice or making use of the ham bone and ham meat in this Ham Potato Vegetable Soup.
Is this ham recipe gluten-free?
Yes, this ham recipe is naturally gluten-free. Just make sure the ham you buy doesn’t have any wheat listed in the ingredients label.
Can I make this ham ahead of time?
This ham is perfect for making in advance! Once it’s done cooking, you can even arrange slices of ham on a serving plate and brush honey glaze in between each slice. Cover and keep warm in oven until ready to serve.
Did you make this?
Please give us a rating and comment below. We love hearing from you!
5-Ingredient Honey Baked Ham Recipe
This homemade Honey Baked Ham has the most delicious honey mustard sauce. The sauce is more of a saucy au jus, rather than a gravy. See notes if you want a thick sauce. Spoon plenty of it over the slices of ham, and watch it disappear!
Ingredients
- 4-5 lbs ham, spiral-sliced, fully cooked
- 1 cup apple cider, the sweet juice – not vinegar
- ¼ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
- ¼ cup whole grain mustard, prepared mustard jar with whole mustard seeds
- ¼ cup honey
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350F with rack on lower position.
- Mix together apple cider, brown sugar, mustard, and honey in a bowl. Mix well to fully incorporate basting sauce.
- Place ham in a 13×9 baking dish. Coat ham with a generous amount of sauce. Bake for 60-70 minutes, basting thoroughly every 15 minutes.
- To serve pre-cut slices of ham, arrange slices neatly on a serving dish and brush more sauce all over ham slices. Serve with leftover sauce (see note).If serving ham whole, be sure to have sauce available for drizzling. The sauce is what makes this ham so great!
Equipment
- Baking Dish, Oven Proof
Notes
- We like bone-in, spiral sliced ham best. You can also slice ham yourself and arrange it neatly on a baking dish and proceed with the recipe.
- Honey mustard sauce is more of a saucy au jus consistency, rather than a thicker gravy texture.
- For thicker sauce: place sauce in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. In a small bowl, stir and dissolve 1 TB cornstarch in 2 TB cool water to make a cornstarch slurry. Stir in slurry a little at a time to the boiling sauce, adding only as much as needed until sauce is thickened to your liking.
- This ham is amazing with Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes or Garlic-Butter Potatoes!
- If you enjoyed this recipe, please come back and give it a rating. We ❤️ hearing from you!
Nutrition (per serving)
Serving: 1g | Calories: 239kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Protein: 20g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 0.001g | Cholesterol: 56mg | Sodium: 1112mg | Potassium: 281mg | Fiber: 0.2g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 3IU | Vitamin C: 0.2mg | Calcium: 12mg | Iron: 1mg
More to Cook and Eat
- Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes Recipe – this comforting potato dish is absolutely scrumptious.
- Wild Rice Pilaf – this is hands-down our favorite rice pilaf ever. Tender, hearty, nutritious, and delicious!
- Ham Potato Vegetable Soup – Here’s what we do with leftover ham. It’s always a hit!
- How to Make Sliders (Ham and Cheese Sliders Recipe) – a favorite party appetizer or finger food, for all the game days and fun gatherings.