Slow Cooker Honey Glazed Ham
My method for slow cooker honey glazed ham results in a tender, juicy, über-flavorful ham with just a few minutes of hands-on time. This rich and thick homemade honey ham glaze adds tons of moisture and flavor!
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Slow Cooker Honey Glazed Ham
- 🕰️ Prep Time: 10 minutes
- ⏰ Cook Time: 4 hours in the slow cooker
- 🍖 Flavor Profile: Juicy ham with a caramelized, sticky savory-sweet glaze.
- 🍽️ Good For: Thanksgiving when you don't want dry brined turkey, Christmas dinner main course, Easter spreads, or even weeknight dinners.
- 🧡 Difficulty: Easy enough for a weeknight, fancy enough for a holiday.
"This is beyond delicious! So easy and moist and a big bonus for me: frees up the oven to cook other things (like the cheesy potatoes that MUST be served alongside). So very glad I found this recipe!"
- ANN -
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🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
Hiya, friend: Ready for the easiest ham ever? The slow cooker makes for the simplest juicy ham!
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- It makes the juiciest ham. By cooking the ham slowly at a low temp, and by keeping it covered, the ham retains all its moisture. That means you get the juiciest ham possible!
- The honey-mustard glaze is so dreamy. You could just cook the ham in the slow cooker in the honey mustard mixture, serve it, and call it there. But I like to go the extra step and simmer down the cooking liquid, glaze the ham, and then put it in the oven for a quick trip under the broiler. It gives it that glossy, glazed, sticky, delicious coating that is pretty much the thing dreams are made of.
- Time for sides: The beauty of making your main dish in the slow cooker is that you'll have plenty of time to make the sides (or just take a break and put your feet up)! Try it with some Instant Pot mashed potatoes, easy yeast rolls, Instant Pot applesauce with skins or my freezer applesauce, or butternut squash basmati rice. To get some colorful produce on your plate, try a pomegranate persimmon salad, glazed beets, or cranberry applesauce.
- It's simple to put together. We tend to reserve cooking juicy, tender ham for holidays, and while I love a good Easter or Christmas ham, I'm here to tell you that by using the slow cooker, making a ham is easy enough for even the busiest of weekdays!
🍖 The Ingredients You Need
- Ham: I usually opt for a bone-in ham because I prefer the flavor and moisture you get. They are larger and slightly harder to carve, but they hold moisture better, and as a bonus, you get a great ham bone that is perfect for Ham and Beans! Having a pre-sliced ham (also sold as a spiral-cut ham) will save you a lot of headaches when it comes time to carve, and it also has the added benefit of allowing you to get all the flavorful glaze in between all the slices.
- Mustard: Go with Dijon or spicy brown mustard to counter the sweetness of the honey and brown sugar.
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Boneless Ham: I've made this recipe with both boneless and bone-in hams, and I do prefer the flavor and moisture you get from a bone-in ham, but it's hard to beat the convenience of a boneless. Boneless hams are easier to work with (no bone to cut around) and smaller (making them easier to fit in a slow cooker), but they also tend to dry out more easily. A pre-sliced ham is less important if you are getting a boneless ham, as those are much easier to carve than a bone-in ham.
- Use Honey Mustard: If you aren't a big mustard fan, I promise this ham doesn't come out with a strong mustard flavor! But if you want to cut it down even more, you can use honey mustard instead of the stronger Dijon or spicy brown mustard. You may want to reduce the amount of honey a touch to account for the sweeter mustard-give the sauce a taste before you pour it into the slow cooker to see what you think!
🥣 Slow Cooker Honey Glazed Ham How-To
Step 1: Put the ham in the slow cooker, and then heat all the glaze ingredients together on the stove top. Heat and whisk just until all the sugar is dissolved. Pour the honey-mustard glaze over the ham-you may need to separate the slices a bit to get the glaze between them.
Cover and cook for 3-4 hours on Low or 2-3 hours on High. Because the ham is pre-cooked, you just need to cook it long enough to warm it through.
Step 2: Move the ham to an oven-safe dish to get it out of the way. Then pour the liquid from the slow cooker into a small saucepan and cook for 5-7 minutes. It should be thick and bubbly.
Step 3: Pour the glaze over the entire ham. Broil for 4-5 minutes, basting with the glaze every minute or so.
🙋🏻♀️ Slow Cooker Honey Glazed Ham FAQs
The secret to getting the honey-mustard glaze flavor in every bite of ham is to use the glaze twice! First, you'll cook the ham low and slow in the Crock Pot, bathed in the honey-mustard mixture like the ham's own personal spa treatment. Then when the ham is warmed through, you'll reduce the sauce into a glaze, brush it all over the cooked ham, and broil it in the oven for just a few minutes to bring out the yummy caramelized flavors.
You can absolutely warm up a fully-cooked ham in the oven, and have dinner on the table in a shorter amount of time. But not only does the slow cooker keep the whole process so beautifully hands-off, it also keeps the ham from drying out. In the slow cooker, the ham is kept covered, and is cooked slowly at a low temperature. All this comes together to help retain moisture, so you end up with a juicy, delicious ham.
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👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Opt for a bone-in spiral ham: While I've made this recipe with every kind of pre-cooked ham out there-boneless, bone-in, spiral-cut, unsliced-you'll get the best results with a bone-in, spiral ham. Leaving the bone in makes for a more flavorful, juicier ham, while a spiral-cut ham will save you a lot of effort at carving time!
- Make it fit: If you have a larger slow cooker (like my six quart one), you can fit a quarter ham with the lid on, and you can even fit a half ham if you make a fake lid with aluminum foil! The largest ham I was able to fit in my slow cooker was a 7-pound ham. If you end up going bigger, you might have to trim off some of the end to fit it well.
- Use leftovers wisely: You can certainly eat leftover ham cold, but if you want to heat it up, you have two options. For heating up just one or two servings, you can warm up individual pieces in a skillet over medium heat. To warm a larger batch of slices, place the ham in a baking pan, add ½ cup of water or cider, and cover with foil. Heat in a 350°F oven for 15 minutes. Warm or cold, you can use your leftover ham in sandwiches or salads, serve it for breakfast, or stir it into soups like my split pea soup with ham.
🍲 More Slow Cooker Recipes
If you tried this slow cooker honey-glazed ham or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
📖 Recipe
Slow Cooker Honey Glazed Ham
Ingredients
- 1 spiral-sliced ham fully cooked (between 4-7 pounds)
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup honey
- 2 tablespoons Dijon or spicy brown mustard
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- ¼ cup water
Instructions
- Place the 1 spiral-sliced ham in the basin of a slow cooker.
- In a small saucepan, combine the ½ cup brown sugar, ½ cup honey, 2 tablespoons Dijon or spicy brown mustard, ¼ teaspoon ground cloves, 2 cloves garlic, and ¼ cup water over high heat. Heat until just warm enough to dissolve the sugar. Pour the mixture over the ham, making sure to separate the slices to let the glaze get between.
- Cover the slow cooker tightly with the lid, or, if the ham is too large, make a tight cover with aluminum foil.
- Cook on low for 3-4 hours, or high for 2-3-just until warmed through.
- Preheat the broiler, transfer the ham to an oven-safe dish, and set aside. Pour the cooking liquid into a small saucepan. Heat cooking liquid on medium-high for 5-7 minutes, or until thick and bubbly. Brush onto ham, and broil for 4-5 minutes, removing to baste with additional glaze every minute or so.
Video
Notes
- I've made this recipe with both boneless and bone-in hams, and I do prefer the flavor and moisture you get from a bone-in ham, but it's hard to beat the convenience of a boneless. It's really up to you, whichever you prefer.
- The general recommendation for ham serving sizes is that you need about ½ pound of boneless ham per person, or ¾ pound bone-in ham per person. I have found that a boneless quarter ham (about three pounds), is plenty to serve my family of three for dinner, and still have plenty of yummy leftovers for next-day sandwiches.
- For a ham that is bordering on too large for the Crock Pot, go ahead and double the glaze. The foil lid doesn't need to be air-tight, you're just looking to keep the heat in. I just kinda wedge it along the edges and then twist it together at the top. Like making the slow cooker a tin foil hat.
It was a hit ! I prepared a 10lb bone in ham. I have never been able to pull the bone away from the meat so when it was finished I pulled the bone an it lifted away from the meat with ease. The flavor was amazing. Thank you.
Hi, Looks yummy... Can the ham be uncooked for this? Just longer cooking time in the crock pot? Not sure what you mean by fully cooked and If I need to pre cook before crock pot how would I do that?
Thanks!
No, you'll need a full-cooked, smoked ham (which is what you'll find at most grocery stores).
about how many pounds?
I tried this and what started out as a succulent ham, turned into a tasteless, dry, boiled ham. It not only lost its color, but became tough, since it lost most of the juices.. Try using the same glaze and just bake the ham for the recommended amount of time for baking. This actually only takes a couple hours versus the 4-6 hours to boil it. Baking it gives the meat a chance to warm up, retaining the natural juices, enhancing the flavor and allows the glaze to form a beautiful crust on the outside. So, the finished product is a moist, tender, flavorful and beautifully glazed ham.
I too, was not happy with how the ham came out; although the flavor from the glaze was fine. The ham was very dark and the texture was like soft jerky.(for lack of a better descriptive term) It fell apart like a slow cooker meat will do but it just was not nice to eat. Every bit of the moisture in the ham must have cooked out because the cock pot was 3/4 full of liquid after the 8 hours on very low setting. I surely must have done something very wrong. We and company ate it, but I was embarrassed to serve it. I had no other meat for back up for Easter dinner. I think I would just use the glaze and do the ham in the oven the next time. I used this crock pot method to free up the oven for other things that had to be baked or roasted before the meal. If I could find out what went wrong, I would maybe try the method again.
If baking - at what temperature?
Mine was delicious! I made it for Christmas Eve. But Wais mine the only one that came out so dark in color? It nearly looked like beef. Maybe because I had used a Honey-baked ham? Any answers? I'm making it again tomorrow ?
If you read most of the other comments, they had not made it yet, just thought it looked delicious! I cooked mine 5 hours on low! And it came out brown. Threw it out into the woods
I was just wondering if I could put the ham in frozen or do i have to thaw it first?
Frozen is fine, but it'll just take longer to cook. 🙂
Could I put pineapple slicess and juice like my mother used to do in the oven with the maraschino cherries? Or, should I do that when warming on Christmas morning? My ham is bone in and do you think honey mustard can substitute Dijon as I don't care for the taste.
You can sub in honey mustard, and you can definitely add pineapple slices and cherries!
Can I make this with a whole bone in smoked ham? It is not spiral cut. I am wanting to make the day before, cut it up and put back in the crockpot on low with the glaze to serve the following day, will this work? Thanks!!!
Sure, if you have a slow cooker that is large enough to hold it—I don't see why not!
Cassie, my ham is not spiral cut. Should i slice it before following your recipe?
You can slice before or after—either should be fine!
I've never cooked ham this way but it seems so easy! I'm wondering though if the ham is fully cooked why does it need so long in the slow cooker? Just curious, thanks.
To warm it all the way through and make sure all the yummy glaze flavor gets everywhere! 🙂
I'm going to try it thanks.
Awesome recipe! thank you for sharing. I use whole yellow mustard seeds between the slices to hold them apart so the sauce covers every part 🙂
This is beyond delicious! So easy and moist and a big bonus for me: frees up the oven to cook other things (like the cheesy potatoes that MUST be served alongside). So very glad I found this recipe!
We've never tried this before. How much liquid should be added? Enough to cover the ham?
Just add the entire glaze listed in the recipe, no need for extra liquid. 🙂
This looks PERFECT!! I wish I had some slices for lunch today.
Love the photography. We aren't that big on Thanksgiving in Bombay, but this is definetly going on my to-do list
XOXO
Cassie, this ham looks fantastic! That glaze is just perfect. Can you send me some leftovers of this??
My boyfriend is obsessed with hoarding ham from Thanksgiving so I can make him ham gravy haha.
This is awesome! I don't know why I've never thought to make ham in the slow cooker! We love ham here. 🙂
Love this! Love making ham in a crock pot. So easy and frees up the oven.
Yum! I've done ham in the slow cooker too and it's awesome. I can't wait to try this.
One quick question, if I wanted to make a half ham, would I double the glaze or no? Also, I've never done a makeshift foil lid. Is it as simple and self explanatory as it sounds (cover crock pot with foil)?
Thanks!
Go ahead and double the glaze for a half ham. And yup, the foil lid is pretty self explanatory. It doesn't need to be air-tight, you're just looking to keep the heat in. I just kinda wedge it along the edges and then twist it together at the top. Like making the slow cooker a tin foil hat. 🙂
You have so many ads on this site, that I cannot even get this recipe cuz the page is so awful!
No! I did a half ham and this amount of glaze almost went over the lip of the cooker at the end! I cooked mine on low for 5 hours and it was way way over done. To the point of being brown. Never had over cooking issues before.