Cranberry-Glazed Spiral Ham Recipe
Cranberry Glazed Ham is a little sweet, a little tart, and a whole lot of yummy! A spiced cranberry and orange sauce gives this spiral ham recipe a tangy, caramelized taste that is perfect for your next holiday feast!
Cranberry Glazed Ham is an easy recipe that is perfect for Christmas, Easter, or any time! If you love cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, you will love the taste of this ham.
The recipe combines all of the flavors of my brown sugar cranberry sauce with allspice and clove to make a spiral ham glaze that is totally mouthwatering!
CRANBERRY-GLAZED SPIRAL HAM RECIPE
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Ingredients Needed for Cranberry-Glazed Spiral Ham
This succulent cranberry ham glaze requires only 7 simple ingredients:
- A spiral sliced ham
- A can of jellied cranberry sauce
- Brown sugar
- Orange juice
- Ground cloves
- Ground cinnamon
- Ground allspice
You should be able to get around 8-10 servings from a 5-6 pound ham. Simply double the recipe if you need to feed more people!
How to Make a Glaze for Ham
This homemade ham glaze recipe is super simple! It only takes four steps to make the best ham glaze:
- Add all of your glaze ingredients to a saucepan and stir to combine.
- Heat the mixture slowly over medium heat.
- As the glaze begins to bubble and thicken, whisk until smooth.
- Remove from the heat and use the glaze as directed by the recipe.
How to Glaze a Ham
Glazing a ham is as easy as can be and gives a spiral cut ham SO much flavor. Go ahead and discard the glaze packet that comes with your ham. My homemade glaze blow that stuff out of the water!
- First, cook your ham according to the directions on its packaging in a preheated oven. A good rule of thumb for baking a ham is to bake for 18-20 minutes per pound.
- While your spiral ham is baking, make the glaze.
- In the last 30 minutes of cooking, remove the ham from the oven and use a pastry brush or basting brush to spread half of the glaze liberally over the ham. You can also use a spoon or ladle if you prefer.
- Be sure to get the brush into all of the nooks and crannies of the ham’s cuts. This step will make the ham super flavorful, ensuring that the glaze permeates into the ham and adds flavor to every single slice.
- Return your glazed spiral cut ham to the oven for the final 30 minutes. When it’s finished cooking, remove the ham from the oven and spread the remaining glaze over the ham or serve it on the side with a spoon.
Should you score a ham before baking?
Ham glaze is best used on scored hams since the cuts in the meat allow the glaze to permeate into the nooks and crannies of the ham. This is important because if your ham is smooth on the outside, the glaze will slide down the sides of the ham and won’t create the sweet caramelized crust that makes a glazed ham so delicious.
I recommend purchasing a pre-cut spiral ham to save yourself the time and effort of scoring. A spiral-cut ham is great for glazing because you can get the glaze down into the slices for ultimate flavor.
If you can’t find a spiral ham, you can score your own by making a crisscross pattern in the outside of the top side of the ham.
Is bone-in ham better than boneless?
There are benefits to both types of ham!
A bone-in ham will come out juicier and more flavorful. The bone helps the meat to retain moisture and will assist with redistributing the juices upon resting after your ham is cooked.
A boneless ham is much easier to cut than a bone-in ham.
If you’re worried about your boneless ham drying out, you can keep it moist by basting it regularly with pan juices. Before you add the glaze to the ham, you can also tent it with foil during the initial baking process to retain moisture.
Other Ham Recipes to Try!
- Riesling Peach Glazed Ham
- Pineapple Glazed Ham
- Honey Glazed Crock Pot Ham
- 3-Ingredient Apricot Glazed Ham
- Baked Ham with Brown Sugar Glaze
- More MAIN DISH recipes…
These are my favorite ways to use leftover ham!
- Breakfast Ham Casserole
- Slow Cooker Ham & Potato Cheese Soup
- Ham & Egg Taquitos
- Cheesy Ham and Hash Brown Casserole
- Leftover Ham and Lentil Soup
Tools used to make this Cranberry-Glazed Spiral Ham recipe
Roasting Pan: This roasting pan is a great tool for feeding a crowd. I like that this roasting pan holds large cuts of meat securely, so I can rest easy knowing that I won’t open my oven to a mess.
Basting Brush: This silicone basting brush is easy to clean and super versatile. Use it to glaze roasted meats or apply egg washes to pie crusts with ease.
*This post originally posted on 12/06/2012.
Cranberry-Glazed Spiral Ham Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 pound spiral-cut ham
- 16 ounces jellied cranberry sauce
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup orange juice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
Instructions
- Unwrap the ham and discard the glaze packet it came with. Place the ham in a roasting pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 2 hours. The ham needs to cook for 18 to 20 minutes per pound or until thermometer reads 160 degrees F internal temperature.
- While ham is baking combine the cranberry sauce, brown sugar, orange juice, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice in a medium saucepan.
- Cook the cranberry glaze ingredients over medium-low heat slowly whisking until smooth.
- Spoon half the glaze over the ham about 1 hour 30 minutes into the cooking time. Return to oven and bake for another 30 minutes.
- Remove ham from oven and transfer to a cutting board or serving platter. Serve with remaining glaze on the side.
Nutrition
Why do you think you need to bake the ham to 160?? All spiral-cut hams are ALREADY fully cooked. You don’t need to cook it a second time. All you need to do is warm it up. That means an internal temp of 115 to 120. Anything more than that will only dry the hell out of the meat. On the plus side, the glaze sounds good.
i am going to try this for christmas
I’m so glad!
I may need to make this instead of getting a Honey Baked Ham!
It was so yummy Rachel, I know you’ll love it. It also couldn’t have been easier.