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Baked Honey Ham Recipe (5-Ingredients)

No need to spend a lot of money or time on your favorite holiday ham. Easily make your own version with this 5-Ingredient Baked Honey Ham Recipe. It’s ridiculously easy and always a hit.

honey baked ham spiral sliced on a plate.
Honey Baked Ham is unbelievably easy to make at home, with just 5 ingredient; the honey mustard sauce is a winner!

Video: Watch Us Make This Recipe

Why This Honey Baked Ham Stands Out

  • Super 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 Holidays: Perfect for Christmas, Easter, or anytime your family craves a simple yet amazing ham.
  • Very 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 Love it: 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 unfiltered honey is my favorite, as it’s organic and budget friendly.
  • 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: We use whole grain mustard for this Honey Mustard Chicken with Curry, which showcases how huge a difference the style of mustard makes in a recipe.

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 juice, 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 sweet 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

  1. Make Sauce: Mix together apple cider, brown sugar, mustard, and honey in a bowl. Mix well to fully incorporate basting sauce.
  2. 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.
honey baked ham spiral sliced.
Baste your honey baked ham every 15 minutes, for juicy, golden brown results.

What to Serve With Honey Baked Ham

Potatoes

Rice and Quinoa

Breads and Dinner Rolls

Vegetables and Salads

honey baked ham spiral sliced
For ease of preparation, use a spiral sliced ham, or you can thinly slice your own ham prior to cooking.


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!

honey baked ham recipe using spiral sliced ham.

5-Ingredient Honey Baked Ham Recipe

4.95 from 211 ratings
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!
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Servings: 20
Author: Amy Dong

Ingredients  

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

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
Course: Main Dish
Cuisine: American
Diet: Gluten Free, Low Lactose
Method: Bake

More to Cook and Eat

4.95 from 211 votes (175 ratings without comment)

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Recipe Rating




135 comments

    • Megan
    • 5 stars

    Delicious! Our Christmas includes Grandma’s Wild Rice Soup. Thanks for sharing 🙂

    • Lavanda Michelle
    • 5 stars

    I love how simple and delicious it is – and the honey mustard sauce is a winner! Can’t wait to try it out and impress my guests.

    • Tim kelly
    • 5 stars

    Have made it several times and doesn’t seem to fail. Used a little extra honey and Dijon.

    • Sharon
    • 5 stars

    I love spiral ham and the flavors for this recipe is sooo good! Thanks for sharing your recipe.

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