Ham Roast

4.95 from 37 votes

This ham roast comes out of the oven delicious and moist with a crispy outside and tender meat inside, all flavored with a sweet honey mustard glaze.

Prep Time15

Cook Time2

Total Time2 15

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Ham Roast Recipe

Servings:

Calories: 321kcal

Ingredients

8 pounds smoked ham, semi-boneless or bone-in. It depends on the brand
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup honey
¼ cup spicy brown mustard
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup water
whole cloves, optional garnish

Instructions

Remove or lower your middle oven rack in your oven before preheating. Preheat the oven to 325°F. You will need a large roasting pan and an extra-large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil.
Remove all the packaging from the smoked ham. If it came with a seasoning packet, I typically just discard it. Place the ham into the roasting pan.
Using a very sharp knife, you will make score marks into the skin and fat of the topside of the ham. You will want to create a diamond pattern of 1 to 1½ inch-sized diamonds. Your score marks should be about ½ inch deep.
In a mixing bowl, stir together the unsalted butter, light brown sugar, honey, spicy mustard, salt, black pepper, and ground cloves. Set aside.
Add the water to the bottom of the roasting pan and cover the ham tightly with the large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Make sure that you seal the edges well so that no steam escapes. This helps to ensure that your ham stays moist and heats through evenly.
Bake for 1 hour (or all but the last hour of bake time according to the size of your ham). Remove the ham from the oven and remove the piece of aluminum foil from the ham. Set the foil aside.
Using a pastry brush, brush the glaze over the entire surface of the ham. Try to get the glaze mixture into the score marks on the top of the ham.
If you want to add the optional whole cloves to garnish your ham, carefully poke a single whole clove into the center of some of your diamond marks to create a beautiful presentation. If you plan to use whole cloves, you can cut back the amount of ground cloves in your glaze to ⅛ teaspoon.
Place the ham back into the oven, uncovered, for the remaining 1 to 1½ hours of cook time. Your ham should have an internal temperature of approximately 140°F. During this time, you can spoon some of the juices from the roasting pan over the top of the ham to baste your ham and keep it moist.
Allow your ham roast to rest on the counter, lightly tented with the reserved piece of aluminum foil, for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Notes

You can find these hams in the refrigerated meat section of your local grocery store. They are roughly 8 to 10 pounds per ham. You will need to allow 18 to 20 minutes per pound of bake time.
Remember, these smoked hams are already cooked. You are actually just warming them through and flavoring them with this honey mustard glaze. You DO NOT want a fresh ham for this recipe. Fresh hams need special cooking instructions, and while they are delicious, they will not look like the traditional holiday ham that is so famous.
I highly recommend using a disposable aluminum roasting tray and heavy-duty aluminum foil for cooking these hams. I like to place the disposable roasting tray onto a large rimmed baking sheet to make transportation to and from the oven much easier. It is a bonus that it makes clean-up super easy too.
Oven temperatures vary and may need to be recalibrated periodically to ensure they are accurate. Make sure to keep a close eye on your ham as the suggested cooking time approaches.
The whole cloves studding the outside of the ham is an optional garnish that not only will give your delicious ham added flavor but also makes a beautiful presentation. If you like the flavor of the cloves but not the work or look of the whole cloves, you can just add ¼ to ½ teaspoon of ground cloves to your glaze mixture.
I like to reserve the juices from the roasting pan to spoon over the roasted ham, being sure to get the juices into all those score marks to add extra moisture and flavor to my ham. My family even likes to spoon some of the juices onto their individual servings on their plate, like you would gravy over turkey.

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