A simple gammon joint, studded with cloves and liberally slathered with a delicious combination of honey and Dijon mustard before roasting, is an absolute classic – and for good reason! This Easy Peasy Honey Roast Ham makes a beautiful centrepiece, tastes wonderful and yet is super simple to make and involves very little hands-on time. It also makes a delicious ham stock – perfect for making Honey Roast Ham Gravy!
Always a winner!
A gorgeous roast ham, studded with cloves and coated with a delicious honey and mustard glaze makes a beautiful centrepiece – whether that’s for a Sunday roast, a celebratory dinner, Christmas day feast or a boxing day buffet – Honey Roast Ham is always a winner.
Super easy to make…
This Honey Roast Ham is easy peasy to make too! All you need to do is simmer the ham in water (add onion, bay and peppercorns to the stock for extra flavour). Next, remove the ham from the water (which has magically become a ham delicious stock!), remove the rind and score the fat into a diamond pattern. Then put a clove into each cross and slather the whole ham with a simple glaze made from Dijon mustard and honey. Finally roast in the oven for 20 minutes, rest and carve!
Don’t forget the gravy!
This recipe gets even better, because you can use some of the stock to make a delicious Honey Roast Ham Gravy.
Simply mix a chicken stock cube with cornflour and 500ml of the ham stock, then pour the contents of the jug into the empty ham roasting tin (and stir to get all the flavours from the tin). Finally pour the contents of the roasting tin into a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring regularly until the gravy is hot and thickened to your liking.
TOP TIP: Put a little of the stock into the base of the roasting tin. This will stop the drips from the roasting ham from burning – meaning your gravy will have lots of lovely ham/mustard/honey flavours from the roasting meat… but no burnt flavours!
Is it necessary to poach the ham first for Honey Roast Ham?
Technically, you could skip the poaching part and go straight to roasting… and often this is what the pack instructions tell you to do… And you know me, I always try to make my recipes as simple as possible… so why do I tell you to poach first?
There are 4 very good reasons for poaching before roasting, when it comes to Honey Roast Ham:
- The ham is less salty – poaching gets rid of lots of the salt. Without poaching, ham can be very salty.
- The ham is more moist – without the poaching step, you will have to roast the ham for much longer which dries the ham out. By contrast, poached-then-roasted ham is super moist!
- The ham has more flavour – poaching allows you to add extra flavours into the poaching liquor, (like onion, bay and peppercorns) which flavour the ham, making it even more delicious!
- You get loads of delicious ham stock! Perhaps the best reason of all… poaching your ham first, gives you lots of amazing ham stock – which is perfect for making ham gravy. Better still, this recipe yields enough stock to use in the future too… I love using ham stock in soup – it adds so much flavour!
What is the difference between ham and gammon?
The answer is simple: gammon is uncooked ham.
This means when you go to the supermarket or butcher, you’ll need to buy a gammon joint for this recipe… but once you’ve cooked it, it magically becomes ham!
Sometimes you’ll see recipes for Honey Roast Gammon, but in reality, Honey Roast Gammon is the same thing as Honey Roast Ham. (And if we are being really pedantic here, Honey Roast Gammon is wrong because no one eats it raw!)
What to serve with Honey Roast Ham?
Honey roast ham goes well with all your usual roast dinner sides, such as roast potatoes or mash, roast parsnips and other vegetables… and, of course, Honey Roast Ham Gravy.
Alternatively, Honey Roast Ham is delicious with baked potatoes and coleslaw, or as part of a buffet with various salads (Creamy Potato Salad and Fruity Couscous Salad go particularly well!)
And, of course, Honey Roast Ham is delicious in sandwiches – with extra Dijon mustard!
What to drink with Honey Roast Ham?
Honey Roast Ham is delicious with soft and fruity reds, such as Merlot, Grenache or New Zealand Pinot Noir.
It also works well with Chardonnay, if you prefer white wine.
What to do with leftover Honey Roast Ham?
Ham is one of those foods that you should always make too much of… because the leftovers are so wonderful. Of course, you can absolutely make a sandwich, or serve the leftover cold ham with baked potatoes and/or salads.
But there’s so much more you can do with leftover ham! You could:
- Add it to soup (along with the leftover ham stock!) – like this recipe for Easy Ham and Split Pea Soup
- Add it to a risotto – like this recipe for Ham, Pea and Sprout Risotto
- Make a salad – like this recipe for Leftover Ham, Squash and Puy Lentil Salad
- Add it to Macaroni Cheese (stir it into the cheese sauce at the same time as the pasta)
- Add it into Special Fried Rice instead of bacon
- Add it into a Chicken and Mushroom Pie (stir it in when you add the stock)
- Turn it into a ploughman’s with cheese, chutney, crusty bread, celery and gherkins
Are you feeling hungry, yet??? 😜
Can you freeze Honey Roast Ham?
Absolutely! Ham freezes really well. I recommend you slice or cube the ham first (depending on what you plan to do with it when you defrost it) and then place it in a lidded container or freezer bag in the freezer, where it will keep for up to 1 month.
Defrost overnight in the fridge and use / reheat as above.
If you like this recipe…
…you might also like:
Easy Peasy Honey Roast Ham (and Gravy)
Ingredients
Easy Peasy Honey Roast Ham
- 2 kg uncooked ham joint (AKA gammon) with fat and rind still on
- 1 onion cut into quarters
- 4 bay leaves
- 10 whole peppercorns
- 3 tablespoons runny honey
- 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 20 cloves you may need slightly more or less than this depending on the size of your joint
Honey Roast Ham Gravy
- 1 low salt chicken stock cube (I use Kallo Organic)
- 2 tablespoons cornflour
- Splash of cold water
- 500 ml ham stock (the water that was used to boil the ham)
Instructions
Easy Peasy Honey Roast Ham
- Place the uncooked ham joint in a large saucepan and completely cover with cold water.
- Cover with a lid and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.
- Drain off all the water (take care as the water and ham will be very hot!) but leave the ham in the pan. (See Note 1.)
- Refill the pan with 2 litres of cold water, then add the onion quarters, bay leaves and whole peppercorns.
- Cover with a lid and bring to the boil, then simmer for 1h10 minutes.
- Ten minutes before the end of the simmering time, pre-heat your oven to 200C / 180C fan / gas mark 6 / 400F.
- Mix the runny honey and Dijon mustard together in a small bowl.
- When the simmering time is up, remove the ham from the pan (but keep the delicious ham stock!) and place the ham on a roasting rack in a roasting tray. Gently remove the rind covering the ham joint and about half the fat.
- Make cuts in the remaining fat to form a diamond pattern on top of the ham and put a clove into every cross.
- Liberally coat the joint in the honey/mustard glaze using a pastry brush. (Use about half of the glaze and keep the rest for later.)
- Pour approximately 500ml (2 cups) of the ham cooking water (AKA ham stock) into the base of the roasting tin and place the ham into your preheated oven for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the ham from the oven and coat the joint in the remainder of the honey/mustard glaze. Return the ham to the oven (you may wish to turn the joint round if your oven does not cook evenly!) for a further 10 minutes.
- Remove the joint from the oven and rest for 10 minutes. Carve and serve with all your favourite roast dinner trimmings. While the ham is resting, make the Honey Roast Ham Gravy...
Honey Roast Ham Gravy
- Crumble the stock cube into a small jug. Add the cornflour and a small splash of cold water and stir until you have a thin paste.
- Add 500ml (2 cups) ham stock and stir to combine.
- Pour the contents of the jug into the ham roasting tin (rack removed) and stir gently.
- Pour the contents of the roasting tin into a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring regularly until the gravy is hot and thickened to your liking.
- Remove from the heat and pour the gravy into a gravy boat (or a jug).
- Serve with the Honey Roast Ham.
Notes
- This step is very important - do not miss it out. It will ensure that neither the ham nor the stock are too salty.
- Suitable for freezing. (I recommend freezing the ham and the stock separately.)
- Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
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