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Thanksgiving is right around the corner, which means it’s time to start planning your holiday menu One of the most beloved Thanksgiving traditions is serving a beautifully glazed cooked ham as the centerpiece of your dinner table A juicy, flavorful ham can really take your Thanksgiving meal to the next level.
But not all hams are created equal. With so many options at the grocery store, how do you know which cooked ham is right for your gathering? I’ve got the inside scoop on the best places to buy a ready-to-eat ham that your guests will rave about.
Skip the Supermarket Ham
Let’s start with where not to buy your Thanksgiving ham. While your local supermarket will certainly have a wide selection of hams, most of these are a gamble in terms of quality and flavor. Mass-produced hams that you’ll find at typical chain grocers are often pumped full of questionable ingredients like preservatives, artificial flavors, and “natural flavors” (which could contain MSG).
The hams you’ll find at standard supermarkets are also likely to be the typical water-added variety. This means the ham was injected with a solution during processing to make it heavier and therefore more profitable for the producer. The result is a bland, watery ham with less actual ham flavor.
You can do better than the mysterious, flavorless hams in the supermarket for your Thanksgiving feast! With a little effort, you can track down a high-quality artisan ham from a specialty purveyor that will wow your guests.
Seek Out a Gourmet Ham
For the optimal cooked ham that marries quality with convenience, your best bet is to seek out a gourmet precooked ham from a specialty food store or butcher shop. Avoid the industrial factory farm hams and go for the good stuff from heritage breed pigs raised on small family farms. The difference will be immediately apparent from the complex flavor and ample juiciness.
Here are some of my favorite places to buy a ready-to-eat holiday ham:
Your Local Butcher Shop
Don’t overlook your friendly neighborhood butcher as a source for cooked ham A good, old-fashioned full-service butcher will offer premium deli hams that are cooked off-site by professional artisans They are hands-down tastier than the stiff, salty, supermarket variety.
Speak with the butcher well in advance to see if they carry fully cooked hams and to request the size you need for your Thanksgiving crowd. Opt for a bone-in smoked or fresh ham rubbed with spices and naturally cured rather than injected with excessive liquid. This will provide the richest, most genuine ham experience.
Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market is my go-to when I want a high-quality precooked ham without the labor of locating a specialty butcher. Their prepared food section always has a nice selection of ready-to-eat hams sourced from smaller farms with heritage or pasture-raised pigs.
The Wellshire Farms Fully Cooked Uncured Turkey Ham from Whole Foods is a great option. It contains no artificial preservatives and is minimally seasoned with just sea salt, raw sugar, honey, and spices. I recommend requesting an order several days ahead so they can reserve the proper size ham for your gathering.
D’Artagnan
For an incredibly luxe gourmet ham experience, order from D’Artagnan’s catalog of exquisite cooked hams. This luxury food purveyor partners with small French and American farms to produce specialty meats like their Pommery boneless ham.
Pamper your guests with this with this artisan dry-cured ham made from heritage breed Duroc pigs. It is smoked over beech and oak woods for exceptional flavor. Order online and have it shipped right to your door. An elegant D’Artagnan ham is sure to be the shining star of your holiday table.
Nueske’s
Yield to the temptation of a smoked bone-in ham from Nueske’s, a family-owned Wisconsin smokehouse. Their Applewood Smoked Ham is personally recommended by my Uncle Phil who declares it the most succulent and intensely smoky-sweet ham he’s ever tried.
Nueske’s uses only chilled fresh Grade A Midwestern pork legs and smokes them low and slow over a burning mix of hardwoods. The hams are then spritzed with an apple juice glaze for balance. Order one of these bad boys for your Thanksgiving and be prepared for nonstop yums and rave reviews.
What to Look for in a Premium Cooked Ham
Now that you know the best places to buy, here are a few pointers on what to look for when selecting a top-quality precooked Thanksgiving ham:
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Minimally processed – Avoid hams with lengthy ingredients lists full of preservatives, additives, and artificial flavors. Opt for hams cured with traditional sea salt and spices.
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Natural wood smoking – For the most authentic flavor, choose a ham that’s been smoked over real hardwoods like apple, pecan or hickory. Avoid hams labeled as “smoke flavor added”.
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Bone-in – Bone-in hams retain more moisture during cooking. The bone also imparts extra hammy richness to the meat.
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Pasture-raised heritage breeds – Heritage pig breeds raised on pasture yields the best tasting pork. Duroc, Berkshire, and Red Wattle are some tasty heritage breeds.
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Minimal water retention – Some water added to cure hams is normal, but avoid hams plumped up with excessive saline solution. This dilutes flavor.
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Naturally cured – Hams cured without nitrates or nitrites have a cleaner taste. Look for hams labeled “uncured”.
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Fruity glazes – For a touch of sweetness, I love hams with honey, maple, peach, or apricot glazes made from real fruit.
Order Your Gourmet Ham Now
Now that your mouth is watering for ham, it’s time to reserve your succulent showstopper! Organic heritage hams from small farms are in high demand for the holidays, so order yours ASAP. I recommend connecting with your local specialty butcher or gourmet grocer at least two weeks before Thanksgiving.
Tell them the date you need it and the number of guests you plan to serve so they can reserve the properly sized ham for you. If ordering a mail-order ham, check the website for holiday ordering deadlines and allow ample transit time.
With a little planning, you can skip the sad supermarket ham this Thanksgiving and treat your guests to an insanely delicious gourmet ham that will knock their socks off! A tasty ham as the main attraction will help make your holiday celebration the best ever.
Too Much Fat Was Off-Putting
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While you do want some fat in a ham to keep it moist, two of the hams were so fatty they made me feel ill. The Goldbelly PIT SMOKED BBQ HAM had a fat cap so thick, that it made up half the ham, thus making that half inedible—sad. The Holy Grail Steak Co Mangalitsa Bone-In Smoked Ham also had lots of fat running through it (to be fair, the Mangalitsa pig is labeled the Wagyu of pork), and I got queasy after eating larger pieces of it. That said, if you liked the taste and texture of fat, both hams would satisfy that craving.
Boneless Vs. Bone-In
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In the end, I didn’t really find a huge difference in terms of taste when it came to boneless versus bone-in hams. Sure the bone-in hams, like this one from D’Artagnan, looked nicer—and it feels like you’re serving dinner at a medieval banquet when you carve collops from it—but they weren’t necessarily moister or more flavorful than the boneless hams. The difference was that the boneless hams had more fat marbling throughout (while the bone in hams had veins of fat delineating different sections), like in the Omaha ham, but this turned out not to be as gross as it sounds. Instead, the fat melted and kept the meat moist when the ham was heated. That said, it was more like deli meat than meat from a bone-in ham.
Honey Glazed Ham – The Perfect Thanksgiving Feast
FAQ
Can you buy a fully cooked ham?
What is the best type of ham to cook for Thanksgiving?
When can I buy ham for Thanksgiving?
Are HoneyBaked hams already cooked?
Why should you buy honey baked ham online?
Honey Baked Ham has been a labor of love for us for three generations. If you’ve purchased a Honey Baked Ham or enjoyed one at a holiday or office gathering, you’ve experienced the quality for which we’re famous. We take special care to make sure that quality and superior service are at the forefront when you order Honey Baked Ham online too.
Where can I buy a ham?
However, you can find individual hams in supermarkets like Whole Foods. What we liked: This ham looks eerily similar to those beautiful legs of jamon Ibérico you see in Spanish tapas bars: It’s big, burnished, and the meat inside is flanked by a meltingly soft, creamy layer of fat.
How much does a gourmet ham dinner cost?
Then you can purchase the Gourmet Ham Dinner, which also comes with mouth-watering sides. On top of the spiral-sliced ham with honey glaze, you’ll receive creamy snap peas with bacon, three-cheese scalloped potatoes, artichoke, mushroom, and bacon frittata, and New York-style original cheesecake for $249.99.
What to eat at a Ham & Ham restaurant?
The restaurant is offering hot family meals complete with mains like slow-roasted turkey and hickory-smoked ham, as well as festive sides like house-made bread and celery dressing, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with ham, buttered corn, and a dozen freshly baked dinner rolls.