Easter Ham Help

I don't know about brands to recommend, but my sister-in-law used Sprite to baste her Christmas ham, and it was delicious!!

My boss gives us a ham every year. I have no choice in the selection, so, it's up to me to make it worth eating. What I've done is criss cross cut the ham and slathered it in butter, peppered it, then packed dark brown sugar on it about 1/2 to 3/4 in thick. I put it on a roasting rack covered with foil. Bake until almost done, then remove the foil and let it cook the rest of the way, while basting it with the sweet sugar, ham juice at the bottom of the pan. I think some of that afterward to pour over. It is a huge hit.

I've had good luck with Smithfield Hams.

A good fall back is the spiral cut from Honey Baked.

Yep -the Costco hams are great! That's a shame about the Publix hams -they've always been so good.

You can also buy a plain ham and google "Coca Cola ham recipe." It's REALLY good!

I never buy a ham pre cut or with a glaze packet... Gross. So the best luck I have is when I find a plain smoked ham with a good piece of skin on it. I remove the skin and throw it in the pan to cook up for my dogs. Half way through he baking time for what ever size ham you have spread with home made glaze. My favorite is 2 cups apricot jelly/jam 1/4 cup mustard powder 1/4 cup fennel seeds (this I always mix the day before so flavors blend). Glaze every 15-30 min until done. (sometimes ill put it under the broiler for a minute or two to carmelize the glaze) Let rest. Warm up the rest of the glaze to serve on the side. Remember a smoked ham is fully cooked, you are only warming it up low and slow.

If your ham tends to turn out dry, cook it in the crock pot with a can of soda, boom done! Good luck!

Hi M. ~ I don't know if you're near a Costco, but they have great spiral ham's I buy them every year for Thanksgiving, Christmas & Easter.

Hey! M stepmother was a caterer and I use her ham approach, which I love. Get a good sized ham, I usually get a semi-boneless but not the little loaf ones. You can use the Publix brand, but I usually get one of the name brands Publix carries. Put it in on a rack (although rack is not totally necessary) in a big roasting pan and pour in one cup of water and one cup of vinegar (sounds weird, but try it). Cover with either foil or the cover to the roasting pan. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes per pound. Mix together a cup of brown sugar and a 1/3 cup mustard. Uncover ham, spread sugar and mustard glaze over ham, bake uncovered for another 20-25 minutes (until glaze is bubbly). Sometimes I turn the heat up at this point to brown it a little (375-400). Good luck! (P.S. Don't do this with a spiral cut ham as those are more for sandwiches and the like - this is a regular, uncut ham that I use).

I had a luau for my kids b-day party recently and purchased a spiral ham through Omaha Steaks (cheaper than Honeybaked or Heavenly Ham). It had a sweet crunchy brown sugar outer layer and was pretty good. They had a special--7 lb ham for $40. Don't know if this promo is still going on though...

I don't know about any specific brands but I have had a lot of luck with 'spiral cut' hams!