Every time I buy a ham at the store they have these glaze packets inside the packaging. For years I used them thinking you just had to in order to have ham glaze. How WRONG I was! not only is homemade ham glaze easy to make, it tastes so much better than anything you can get at the store. Plus, you control the ingredients. I came up with a recipe for ham glaze by sheer coincidence at my step mom’s house a few years ago. Now before I tell you how the recipe came about, let me remind you that even though we try to live as healthy as we can most of the time, sometimes we do indulge. So before anyone goes casting stones I freely admit this is an unnecessary indulgence, but oh so good!
Every year at the holidays our family has bacon wrapped, brown sugar smokies. In case you don’t know what that is, you take little smokies and wrap them in a 1/3 strip of bacon, sprinkle with brown sugar, and bake until brown and bubbly. My step mom piped up and said, “You know how you try to reuse everything in the kitchen and not waste stuff?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Well wouldn’t it be a good idea to reuse this bacon/brown sugar syrup after we cook the smokies? You could put it on a ham or something couldn’t you?” And that is how it all started…
Ham Glaze Ingredients
- 1 can of pineapple in 100% pineapple juice OR 1/2 fresh pineapple and 1 cup of pineapple juice
- 1 tbsp spicy brown mustard
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp bacon grease
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and cook on medium low heat until all sugar is dissolved and mixture starts to thicken. Set aside and let cool. Pour cooled mixture over cleaned ham.
And just in case some of you don’t know how easy it is to make flavored butter, here’s a little bonus recipe for you. We love hot bread and homemade honey butter at our house. I usually keep a pound of honey butter made up in the fridge at all times. You can use honey, agave nectar, molasses, or any other thick liquid sweetener to make this recipe. You can also use fresh or dried herbs to make herb butters for savory applications as well. My favorite savory butter combo is parsley and chives. It’s great melted on a steak!
Honey Butter Ingredients
- 1 lb unsalted sweet cream butter
- 1/2 cup honey (or other liquid sweetener you prefer-if you want to make herb butter, substitute 1/4 cup of herbs here)
I use my hand mixer to whip the butter and honey together until well combined. Simple as that.
Do you have a glaze or butter recipe you’d like to share with us?
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