Glazed Maple Pecan Ham — 🐷🧡🤎 This MOIST and TENDER spiral cut ham is brushed with a sticky sweet pecan glaze that caramelizes as it bakes to coat every ham spiral! Between the toasted pecans, sweet glaze, and JUICY ham, there are so many textures and rich flavors in every bite of this incredible yet EASY ham recipe! Wow your dinner guests this holiday season with this IMPRESSIVE ham coated in a maple pecan praline glaze!
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Super Easy Glazed Holiday Ham Recipe
This easy maple pecan ham recipe marries two of my holiday favorites – juicy baked spiral ham and candied nuts. Oh, the flavors!
The tender spirals of ham are coated in a brown sugar maple glaze that’s studded with chopped pecans. As the glaze cooks, it caramelizes and crisps up around the edges yet stays delightfully sticky within the inner spirals of the ham. Oh, the textures!
The glaze is sweet, and if I had to describe the flavor I’d say it tastes like the candied pecans that are sold at shopping malls around the holidays. However, the saltiness from the ham (along with a bit of soy sauce in the glaze) perfectly balances out the sweet pecan glaze, making this one ham recipe my family can’t get enough of!
Save this recipe for your next Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter gathering. If you love sweet and salty recipes, this easy holiday ham is going to be the star of your dinner table!
Ingredients for Baked Maple Pecan Ham
This maple pecan praline glazed ham requires few ingredients, all of which are easy to find at your local grocery store. Gather the following:
- Pre-cooked spiral-sliced ham – choose on that weighs 8 to 10 pounds
- Brown sugar
- Maple syrup – use pure maple syrup, not pancake syrup
- Dijon mustard – this is my gold standard although a spicy brown or grainy brown mustard will work; do not use yellow mustard like you’d use on a hot doge
- Orange marmalade – use the sweet or ‘regular’ kind, not the very bitter orange marmalade
- Soy sauce – I used regular soy sauce; if using low sodium, add ½ tablespoon extra
- Ground cloves
- Pecans – use raw unsalted pecans
- Water
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
Discard These Two Things from the Ham!
Always make sure to remove the bottom plastic piece from the ham before cooking! And discard any glaze packets (for this recipe especially, but I would say always…they don’t tend to ve very “delicious”).
How to Make a Pecan Glazed Ham
Preparing the maple pecan glaze and baking the ham is very straightforward. That’s the beauty of using a pre-cooked spiral ham — it makes preparing for a big holiday dinner SO simple. All you’re doing is really making a glaze to flavor the ham but because the ham has already been cooked, it feels less daunting!
- Place the ham into a large roasting pan and add ½ cup water to the bottom of the pan. Place the ham on top.
- To make the glaze, stir together the brown sugar, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, orange marmalade, soy sauce, and ground cloves in a small saucepan. Cook for about 3 mins, or until the mixture is bubbling and begins to thicken.
- Brush ONE-THIRD of the glaze over the ham, taking care to get into each nook and cranny. Cover the ham with foil and bake at 325ºF for about 2 hours. (See FAQs for information on how long to cook ham per pound.)
- Reheat the remaining glaze and mix in the chopped pecans. Brush over the ham and bake, uncovered, until the glaze has caramelized, about 15-20 mins.
- Rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
Recipe FAQs
You should purchase a bone-in, pre-cooked spiral cut ham. Look for one is approximately 8 to 10 pounds. Do not use a fresh bone-in ham (i.e. uncooked) for this recipe; the bake time would need to be drastically increased in that case and the recipe wasn’t designed for that.
Bake ham for approximately 15 minutes per pound at 325ºF. You’ll know it’s done when the internal temperature reaches 140ºF using a digital meat thermometer or laser thermometer.
If that happens, simply baste the meat with some of the pan juices and return the foil to the top of the ham to prevent it from burning.
To prevent this from happening, before baking, you add about 1/2 cup water to the bottom of the roasting pan before the ham goes into the oven. As the ham bakes, the water turns to steam so the meat stays moist as it cooks. Finally, don’t overcook it. Simple as that. This ham was already cooked so you’re just warming it and allowing the glaze to caramelize and my advice is that “less is more in this recipe”, if in doubt regarding the baking time.
Carving a bone-in spiral ham is fairly straightforward. To carve the ham, carefully turn it onto its bottom, which is the larger of the flat ends. Using a sharp chef’s knife or carving knife, cut around the bone. Cut these larger slices of ham into smaller slices, using the seams of fat running through the meat as your guidelines.
Yes! Let the ham rest for about 15 minutes before carving it. This gives the juices inside the ham time to distribute throughout the meat and also makes it cool off a bit, thereby making it safer to turn the ham on its side in order to carve it. Remember it’s still hot, big, and awkward so be careful.
You’ll likely wind up with leftovers since this recipe calls for an 8- to 10-pound ham! Put that leftover ham to good use by making Ham and Cheese Sliders, Hawaiian Ham and Cheese Sliders, Macaroni Salad with Ham, or Slow Cooker Ham and Bean Soup.
Yes and no. The ham has already been cooked since that’s the type of ham you’ll be purchasing. So it has been “made ahead”. Therefore, you’re just assembling this and baking it with the brown sugar maple glaze. I don’t know how far in advance you can bake it and then try to keep it warm without drying it out? That would depend on your tolerance for dry meat (mine is absolutely none!)
Boiling the glaze in advance seems like a waste of time, it’s a quick 3 minute job, and you’d have to rewarm it anyway when you’re ready to brush it onto the ham.
Bottom line: Try to budget your time and your day to make this the same day you plan to serve it and serve it freshly made. And if you want to keep it warm, tent it under foil for an hour or so, and that’s about as far as I would stretch it. After all, this is likely a celebration entree dish for a special day so plan for it accordingly.
What to Serve with Maple Pecan Crusted Ham
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Glazed Maple Pecan Ham
Ingredients
- 8 to 10 pound precooked spiral ham, mostly commonly sold as bone-in
- ½ cup water
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 3 tablespoons real maple syrup
- 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons orange marmalade
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce, if using lite soy sauce, use 2 1/2 tbsp
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 cup roughly chopped pecans, I use unsalted, raw; you can use salted, candied or your favorite type noting that salted will be of course saltier and candied will be more prone to burning
Instructions
- Ham – Preheat oven to 325F with your main oven rack in the middle position, making sure there's room above to accommodate the ham. Place the ham on a large roasting pan, cut side down. Make sure to remove the bottom plastic piece from the ham before cooking if there is one, and discard any glaze packets. Add 1/2 cup water to the bottom of the pan (this helps keep the ham moist as it bakes). Set aside momentarily.
- Glaze (sauce) – To a small saucepan, add all the remaining ingredients except the pecans (so brown sugar through ground cloves), bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and let it bubble gently for about 2-4 minutes, or until the sauce begins to thicken. Tips – Make sure to keep an eye on it and not let it bubble too fast; turn the heat down to medium low, or as necessary. There's a lot of sugar in this mixture and you don't want it to burn with a fast boil.
- Applying the Glaze #1 – Remove the glaze mixture from heat and brush ONE-THIRD of the glaze over the ham evenly, making sure to get it into the spirals and nooks and crannies. Reserve the leftover glaze for later.
- Bake #1 – Cover the ham with foil and bake it covered for about 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on size.
- Rewarm Glaze + Pecans – Place the glaze back on the stov and over medium heat, rewarm it. It should only take a minute or two. Add the pecans and stir to combine.
- Applying the Glaze #2 – Brush all the remaining glaze and pecan onto the ham, making sure to get it into the spirals and nooks and crannies.
- Bake #2 – Bake the ham uncovered for another 15-20 minutes, or until the ham is fully cooked through and the glaze has caramelized. Baking Tips – If the ham begins to caramelize too quickly you can tent foil over the top of the ham to prevent from overcooking. Ham is "done" when it reaches 140F however this ham was already previously cooked, so you've just been rewarming and flavoring it, and after 2+ hours in the oven, no doubt the meat has come up to 140F.
- Resting and Slicing – Allow the ham to rest for about 10-15 minutes before slicing and serving. See the FAQs in the blog post for slicing tips.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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