Pineapple Ham (Spiral Ham Recipe) - The Cookie Rookie® (2024)

FAQs

Should a spiral ham be covered when baking? ›

How do you bake a ham without drying it out? Spiral cut hams should be covered with aluminum foil to help retain moisture when re heating. You could also place a foil pan with water underneath the ham to create some steam inside the oven to keep everything moist.

Don't bother decorating the outside of your ham with fresh pineapple, as the enzymes in the fruit will turn the meat to mush.

The glaze should not be applied until the final hour to 30 minutes, in order to avoid burning the sugars. What you're going to do with the glaze ingredients is just combine most of them into a paste, and then apply it to the ham. After that, the heat in your oven will take care of everything.

To reheat a spiral-sliced ham in a conventional oven, cover the entire ham or portion with heavy aluminum foil and heat at 325 °F for about 10 minutes per pound. Individual slices may also be warmed in a skillet or microwave.

If you're starting with a pre-cooked ham, you'll only need to cook your ham long enough to heat it all the way through. Total cook time will depend on the size of the ham, your cooking method, and the cooking temperature. In general, you'll want to plan for 10-16 minutes per pound.

Spiral Sliced Hams

Remove packaging, reserving liquid. Place ham cut-side down on a large sheet of foil in a roasting pan. Pour reserved liquid over ham and wrap completely with foil. Warm ham in oven for 10 to 12 minutes per pound.

Salt triggers bromelain to begin working, so by the time the pineapple reaches your mouth, the enzyme has been inactivated, says Tunick. Dipping fresh pineapple briefly in a saltwater solution is the best way to maximize contact between salt and bromelain.

Mushy meat typically is a result of excess tenderizer use.

For the juice, I would recommend basic orange juice, perhaps cut with a little extra lime juice for complexity and acidity.

Cooking Temperature and Time

If the ham is a half ham weighing five to seven pounds, it should heat at 325°F for 22-25 minutes per pound. If it is a whole ham weighing between 10 to 14 pounds, heat the ham at 325°F for 18-20 minutes per pound. The internal temperature should be 140°F.

Do you put water in bottom of roasting pan for ham? ›

Baked Ham Best Practices

Cook fat-side up in a roasting pan filled with about 1/2 inch of water covered tightly in foil for the bulk of the time. During the last 30 minutes, remove the foil, crank the heat up to 425ºF, brush with a simple glaze at least twice. Let rest 20 minutes before carving.

Glazing: Empty contents of the glaze packet into a small saucepan. Add 22 mL (1 1/2 tbsp) warm water. Heat glaze mixture on high, stirring constantly, until glaze begins to boil. Remove immediately from heat.

Cooked canned ham and cooked vacuum-packaged ham, both from federally inspected plants, can be eaten right out of the package. All of these along with spiral-cut cooked ham are safe to eat cold or can be warmed to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C), as they are already fully cooked.

How do you cook spiral ham without drying it out? The key to not drying it out is to not overheat it. Most hams are already pre-cooked so just need to warm it to about 140 degrees before serving. Cook covered to start to trap all of the moisture.

Remove all packaging materials and place ham face down directly into baking dish or roasting pan. (Place whole ham on its side.) Cover tightly with lid, foil or place in cooking bag and heat at 275°F for approximately 12-15 minutes per pound.

Place the ham on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Insert an oven-safe thermometer into the center of the ham. (It should not touch the bone of a bone-in ham.) Bake, uncovered, in the preheated oven until ham registers the desired temperature (140°F for pre-cooked ham).

Take ham slices (many hams are already spiral-sliced) and place them, overlapping, on a baking sheet. Cover with foil and place in a 325-degree oven. This way, the slices, according to Dearborn Brand Ham, will heat quickly and not dry out.

The goal is to reheat the ham without drying it out. The best way to do this is to place the ham on a rack in a roasting pan. Add water to the bottom of the pan and cover the whole thing tightly with foil. Bake at 325F for 16-20 minutes per pound, until a meat thermometer registers 135F.

Place ham, flat side down, on rack in shallow roasting pan; cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake approximately 13 to 18 minutes per pound until heated through. Remove ham from oven. Glaze as directed below or let stand, covered, 10 minutes before serving.