How to Grill a Ham with a Fan Favorite Recipe

For whatever reason around the holidays, I get wrapped up in turkey and roasts and forget about another crowd-pleasing meal: the grilled ham. This tends to strike right after I’ve grilled a ham. Why don’t I prepare these more often, I ask myself? They are fantastic and when dealing with the hustle and bustle of family celebrations, really easy.

Ham comes from the rear legs of a pig and has been preserved by curing. Unless you are feeling really adventurous, the ham you purchase will already be cooked.

However, there are several different types of ham to buy: boneless, bone-in butt, bone-in shank, or spiral cut. Cross boneless off the list for obvious reasons. Pass on the spiral cut, too. Why pay someone else to carve the ham and worse, set the stage for overcooking. This leaves bone-in from the butt or shank. While both are good, the butt end is more tender. The butt end it is.

Since the ham is already cooked, the grilling process is essentially a giant reheat. With a bone-in ham, it’s a process about impossible to mess up. Your holiday dinner is guaranteed to be a success.

What better way to showcase how wonderful the bone-in butt cut is than with this recipe from Jamie Purviance. The magic is not just the sweet, tangy glaze, but the spicy herb fresh dip. It’s why I need to grill ham a lot more often.

by Jamie Purviance

Pineapple-Glazed Ham with Horseradish Sour Cream

People: Serves 8 to 10
Prep Time: 20 min.
Grilling Time: 2 to 3 h

the Ingredients

bone-in, fully cooked smoked ham, preferably from the butt end,3.6 to 4.5 kilograms, any tough outer skin removed

Glaze

unsalted butter
120 milliliters fresh pineapple juice
white wine vinegar
packed light muscovado sugar
ground ginger
Chinese five spice
freshly ground black pepper

Sauce

240 milliliters sour cream
60 milliliters prepared horseradish
finely chopped fresh chives
Dijon mustard

Hawaiian (sweet) dinner rolls (optional)

Instructions

01 Allow the ham to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour before grilling.
02 Prepare the grill for indirect cooking over medium-low heat (about 165ºC).
03 In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat on the stove, melt the butter and cook until it begins to brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Immediately add the remaining glaze ingredients. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.
04 Score the ham in a large crisscross pattern about 12 millimeters deep on all sides except for the cut side. Place the ham, cut side down, in a large disposable foil pan. Pour the glaze around the ham and into the pan. Cover the ham snugly with aluminum foil, crimping the foil around the rim of the pan. Cook the ham over indirect medium-low heat, with the lid closed, for 1½ hours. Meanwhile, make the sauce.
05 In a small nonreactive bowl whisk the sauce ingredients. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. (The sauce can be made up to 1 day in advance and refrigerated, covered, until serving time.)
06 After 1½ hours of cooking, remove the foil from the ham (but save the foil for later) and quickly spoon some of the glaze over the meat. Continue cooking, with the lid closed, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the ham (not touching the bone) registers 48ºC, 1 to 1½ hours more, spooning the glaze over the ham every 20 minutes or so. If the glaze gets too dark, cover the ham loosely with the saved aluminum foil for the remainder of the cooking time. Carefully transfer the ham in the pan onto a sheet pan. Tent the ham loosely with foil. Let rest for 15 to 30 minutes.
07 Cut the ham into thin slices. If desired, drizzle some of the glaze over the slices. Serve the ham warm with the sauce on the side. The ham is also delicious piled high on Hawaiian dinner rolls with some of the sauce spread on one or both sides of the rolls.

Your Must Have Tools

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1. Drip Pans
Use these pans under your ham to catch drippings and keep your grill clean!

2. iGrill
Hams can take a long time to cook and with the colder weather that most of us have during the holidays, you are going to want your grill to stay nice and warm, so that means no peeking! This is where the iGrill comes in! The iGrill is an app-connected thermometer that will send alerts right to your phone about the internal doneness of your food. Trust me, you are going to be thankful for this accessory!