Knowing how to cook a ham properly is a great culinary technique to have up your sleeve. There’s nothing hard about baking a ham. Just follow this step-by-step guide for what to do and what not to do.
Baking a gorgeous glazed ham is a holiday tradition for many families. People often ask, though, if they should cut the ham’s fat off before putting it in the oven. Some people prefer to leave the fat on for added moisture and flavor. Others choose to cut some of the extra fat off to become leaner and healthier. So what should you do? To help you decide, we’ll list the pros and cons of cutting the fat off of ham before baking it.
Why Remove Fat from Ham Before Baking?
Trimming at least some of the fat before cooking does provide certain benefits
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Lower calorie and fat intake – Excess fat adds calories and saturated fat Trimming it can make the meal healthier
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Easier to score – Scoring allows the glaze and fat to penetrate deeper. Thick fat layers can make scoring tough.
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Prevents burnt fat – Chunks of fat may burn and turn bitter if not rendered out.
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Leaner texture – Less fat results in a slightly firmer, drier ham texture. Some people prefer this.
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Cut down on waste—some of the fat might not render completely, so it’s thrown away after baking.
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Change the amount of fat—Trimming lets you change the amount of fat to suit your tastes.
Reasons to Leave Fat on Ham
However, there are also good reasons to bake the ham with the fat still on:
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Prevents drying out – The fat bastes the meat and keeps it tender and moist.
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Richer flavor – Fat carries a lot of flavor as it renders down.
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Looks appetizing – The fat layer adds sheen and charm to a whole glazed ham.
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No need to carve first – Leaving fat on allows glazing and baking in one intact piece.
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Minimal waste – Very little fat is lost when left on the ham during cooking.
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Natural protection – The fat cap helps protect the delicate meat during high heat glazing.
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Traditional preparation – Not trimming fat is the classic technique for cured and smoked hams.
Key Considerations When Trimming Fat
If you do opt to remove some fat prior to baking your ham, keep these guidelines in mind:
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Leave a thin layer of fat – For protection and moisture, avoid removing it all.
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Chill the trimmed ham well before baking – This helps prevent the meat drying out.
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Avoid deep scoring cuts – Just lightly score the remaining fat.
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Closely monitor when baking – Check often to prevent drying out.
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Add moisture if needed – Baste with glaze/stock if ham seems dry.
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Rest glazed ham before carving – Letting it rest allows moisture to distribute.
How to Trim Ham Fat Before Baking
Here is a simple process for trimming excess fat from your ham prior to baking:
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Place chilled ham on a cutting board. Estimate desired fat thickness (about 1⁄4 inch).
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Run a sharp, thin knife along the fat and meat border to separate them.
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Carefully slice off fat, working in small increments. Leave a thin layer.
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Chill trimmed ham thoroughly in fridge to allow fat layer to firm up before baking. This prevents shrinking.
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When ready to bake, lightly score remaining fat. Avoid deep cuts into the meat.
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Apply your glaze and bake ham as desired. Monitor closely to prevent drying out.
Scoring Fat on Ham Before Baking
Scoring the fat layer involves making shallow cuts in a pattern across the remaining fat cap:
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Use a very sharp knife to lightly score fat about 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 inch deep.
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Opt for a diamond pattern or parallel lines. Space scores about 1 to 2 inches apart.
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Avoid cutting into the actual ham meat beneath the fat layer.
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Scoring allows the glaze and melted fat to absorb better into the ham for added moisture and flavor.
How Much Fat to Leave on Ham
This comes down to personal preference. Some common guidelines are:
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For very lean ham, leave just an 1/8 inch layer of fat.
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For moderately lean ham, trim to about 1⁄4 inch of fat.
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For flavor and protection, leave up to 1⁄2 inch of fat.
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Fattier hams may only need slight scoring and very minimal trimming.
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Judge the existing fat thickness and adjust your preference accordingly.
What to Do With Trimmed Ham Fat
The excess fat trim you remove doesn’t need to go to waste. Some tasty ways to use it up include:
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Rendering into lard for cooking and baking
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Adding to sausage or burger mixes for richness
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Dicing up to sauté crunchy bits as a garnish
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Flavoring beans or greens by cooking them in the rendered fat
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Discarding only the unrendered connective tissue pieces after cooking
Whether to trim your ham’s fat before baking comes down to your specific goals and personal eating preferences. For improved health, a leaner texture, and easier scoring, removing some excess fat may be ideal. But leaving the fat intact provides unparalleled moisture, flavor, and presentation for a classic holiday centerpiece. Now that you know the trade-offs involved with both approaches, you can decide what will work best for your ham this year!
Side Dishes & Sauces
When thinking about what sauce to serve with your ham, think about the glaze you have used. Choose something that compliments those flavours. I like to have two kinds of sauce: one with a lot of heat or alcohol and one that isn’t as strong.
- Cranberry Sauce
- Honey Mustard, Grainy Mustard, Dijon etc
- Apples Sauce
- Carrot and Zucchini Pickles
- Pineapple chutney
- Chilli Plum Sauce
- Red Currant Sauce
The ham is the star of the show, and the side dishes you pick will set the mood for the whole meal. Fresh and light sides for a lighter summery feel, or heavier baked sides for a comfort meal.
In the fridge, glazed ham will stay safe for a week. You can also freeze it for up to three months. It is best to keep the ham on the bone and then carve as desired.
I dont store glazed hams in a ham bag. Ham bags are best for hams that havent gone through the glazing and cooking process.
How do I deal with my excess ham? In a couple of ways. I cut up a good amount and put it in a vacuum-sealed container so that my family can use it for sandwiches and other things. I find if I don’t slice it and make it easy for them, it does not get eaten.
You can also cut off large chunks of leftover ham from the bone. Place in a vacuum-sealed bag for later, or freeze. Yes, you can freeze cooked ham.
Another suggestion is to finely dice the ham and freeze it in ½ cup portions. After that, it will be easy to thaw and use for eggs, soup, quiches, frittatas, omelettes, jaffles, and more!
Dont discard the ham bone. This can be used to make soup. It can be frozen for later use.
What ham should I buy?
It’s important to know that all of the hams I’m talking about are already cooked and ready to eat.
It’s not raw ham, also called gammon, which has been cured and smoked but still needs to be cooked right. Nor (for my USA readers) country ham.
Let’s talk about how to cook a ham. All of the times and steps are for hams that have already been cooked and are ready to eat. My personal choice of ham is semi-boneless. I like the look and convenience of the bone when carving.
- Bone-in: A whole ham that is still on the bone. The hock is at one end of the classic large showstopper, and the ham leg spreads out into an oval shape.
- Half Ham: A bone-in ham cut in half. It is the leaner and more tender half of a whole ham. The top half is called the butt. The shank is the bottom half. It tastes better but is fattier.
- Semi-Boneless: All the bones are taken out except for the central bone, which is the hock or shank part. This type of ham is also called Easy Carve Ham. That classic ham shape comes from the way the meat is formed around the bone. Having the bone still there makes it easier to carve.
- Ham that doesn’t have any bones: The meat is shaped into a round, oval, or log shape after the bones are taken out. Some people think they’re not as stylish as a traditional bone-in ham, but you’re getting 10% more meat for your money. Not the perfect choice for glazing, but they can be.
- Shoulder hams with a crackle crust are meant to be baked without a glaze. It makes crackling just like a regular pork roast, even though the rind is still on the ham.
- Spiral Cut Ham: We don’t have this in Australia, but people from the United States would know what it is. Spiral cut ham is a bone-in ham that has been cut all the way around, from the outside to the bone. It’s kind of like a ham slinky where the bone keeps the whole thing together in its shaped. You don’t have to carve the ham; just cut it into slices. Im sure this will turn up in Australia one day.
- Smoked or Unsmoked: This is up to your personal taste. It comes either not smoked or smoked, and ham with more smoke is often called “triple smoked.”
Buy a ham that is the right size for the amount of people you are feeding. Of course factor in for some to be leftover and enjoyed after the event.
The bone-in ham sizes listed below will help you figure out how much food to serve your guests.
3 kg (6. 6 lb): 10-14 serves 4 kg (8. 8 lb): 12-16 serves 5 kg (11 lb): 15-20 serves 6 kg (13. 2 lb): 18-22 serves 7 kg (15. 4 lb): 20-25 serves 8 kg (17. 6 lb): 23-27 serves.
**Lower number if ham is the only main dish; higher number if ham is served with one or two other main dishes
Using a small sharp knife cut a zig-zag pattern around the shank end of the ham. You want to make this cut about 10cm from the end of the bone.
Run the knife around the edge of the ham rind. Then run your fingers under the rind of the ham, between the fat layer and the skin. You will find that the skin will slowly separate from the fat layer. Take it slow, don’t rush it. Do not remove the fat.
After taking off the ham’s skin, use a sharp knife to make diamond-shaped cuts in the fat that are about 1 cm deep. Be careful not to cut into the ham meat, you only want to score the fat.
The fat will render (shrink in size) during cooking. Deep scoring may expose the ham meat when cooking and spoil the look of your ham.
Scoring helps the glaze adhere to the ham better. The glaze also gets in between all those score marks to create a stickier more flavoured end result. It also looks great for presentation.
What glaze you use to cook your ham is all personal taste. There is no wrong way, but there are a few rules to follow.
Sugar of some sort is the most important ingredient in a glaze. It can be brown sugar, maple syrup, or even honey. The sugar is what caramelises the ham so it gets that gorgeous sticky sheen.
Glaze the ham religiously. Brush it over every 10 – 15 minutes. You want to build up that glaze for a deep rich layer of flavour.
Following the easy steps on how to cook a ham after getting the ham and glaze ready
- Take the ham out of the fridge 30 to 60 minutes before cooking. If you live in a warm or cold place, the amount of time you spend outside of the fridge will depend on the season.
- Pre-heat oven 180°C (360°F).
- Place a roasting rack into your chosen baking tin/roasting tray. It needs to be big enough to hold the whole ham.
- Pour some water into the baking tin. This will catch all the juices and fat from the ham while it’s cooking. It keeps them from burning and lets you put the ham on a base. It’s possible to make the water taste better by adding wine or juice.
- Place the ham on the rack for roasting and brush it with a lot of glaze.
- Place the ham in the oven to cook. While it’s in the oven, baste and glaze it every 10 to 15 minutes until the glaze is gone. You want a thick, luscious, sticky glaze layer of flavour.
- Cover parts of the ham that look like they might catch fire with aluminum foil until the rest of the ham is done caramelizing and looks beautiful. This way they have will have a nice even colour.
Below are the cooking times for both bone-in and boneless hams at oven temperature 180°C (360°F).
Remember that your ham is already cooked. The time it spends in the oven is to warm it through and create a gorgeous sticky glaze. If you overcook your ham it may become dry. Which you want to avoid. Dont overcook your ham.
2 kg (4. 4 lb): 40 mins 2. 5 kg (5. 5 lb): 50 mins 3 kg (6. 6 lb): 1 hour 3. 5 kg (7. 7 lb): 1 hour 10 mins 4 kg (8. 8 lb): 1 hour 20 mins 4. 5 kg (9. 9 lb): 1 hour 30 mins 5 kg (11 lb): 1 hour 40 mins 5. 5 kg (12. 1 lb): 1 hour 50 mins 6 kg (13. 2 lb): 2 hours *Add 10 minutes for every half a kilo/1. 1 pounds in addition to the 6kg/13. 3lb cooking time for larger sizes.
If you want to bake your ham on the day
- You can make the glaze ahead of time and keep it in the fridge.
- Take the ham’s rind off a day or two ahead of time. To keep the ham from drying out, put the rind back on it and wrap it in a clean, damp tea towel before putting it back in the fridge.
- Then simply baste and bake on the day.
How to cook a ham entirely ahead of time?
- Cook the ham entirely as per instructions.
- Let it cool completely.
- Put the pan juices in a container that won’t let air in and put it in the fridge.
- Place baking paper over the ham and then wrap it completely in foil. Place in the fridge until needed. You can prepare the ham this way a few days ahead of time.
- It’s time to cook the ham. Take it out of the fridge the day before and put it in a 160°C/320°F oven for about an hour.
- Place reserved pan juices in a saucepan to warm. While the ham is reheating, brush it with the pan juices that have been warmed up. This ensures the ham looks gorgeously glazed and just cooked.
Huge Mistakes Everyone Makes When Cooking Ham
FAQ
Do you remove fat before cooking ham?
Should you trim ham before cooking?
Do you cook ham with fat on top or bottom?
Should I trim the fat off my ham before baking?
Ultimately, whether or not to trim the fat off your ham before baking is a matter of personal preference. If you enjoy a leaner cut of meat or are watching your fat intake, then trimming some of the excess fat off may be the way to go.
Is honey baked ham as good as regular ham?
The addition of honey will affect the calorie content of the food. One tablespoon of honey contributes to approximately 64 calories. In addition, the use of heat when making baked ham will reduce the quality of the honey.
Can you make Ham ahead of time?
Here are some tips and methods for successfully preparing ham in advance: 1.**Glazed Ham the Day Before**: – Glazed ham doesn’t need to be cooked from scratch because it’s already cooked. The key is
Should Ham be cut off?
However, it’s important to note that not all fat is created equal. If there are large chunks of excess outer fat on the ham, it may be wise to trim some of it off. This is because fat and meat cook at different levels, and not trimming the fat off can result in burnt fat that will ruin the taste of your dinner.