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Smoked sweet onion honey glazed ham on a pellet grill makes such a delicious meal for a special occasion. Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter would be the perfect time for smoking a ham on a pellet smoker or Traeger grill. This honey ham recipe is juicy, boasting all kinds of rich, wonderful flavours. The glaze ensures it won’t dry out and the flavour is just phenomenal.
Expect spicy, warm flavors from this smoked spiral cut ham and sweetness from the smoked ham glaze. You’ll love how well this recipe transforms a precooked ham.
Other treats to add to your festive table are pizza giana rustica, Easter bundt cakes, chicken meatball wedding soup, and coconut cottontail cocktails.
Why You’ll Love This
- So special: Ham is always good but on occasions like Easter or Thanksgiving, when you want to make something special, a spiral-cut ham cooked to perfection on a Traeger grill is just perfection.
- Delicious: This one goes without saying. Ham on Traeger smoker is almost too good to be true. How could moist, perfectly-cooked spiral ham be anything but delicious?
- Versatile: Not only is this glazed ham ideal for a special occasion, but you will find plenty of uses for the leftovers, sandwiches and salads just being a couple of possibilities.
Smoked Sweet Onion Honey Glazed Ham Ingredients
You will of course need a ham for this honey ham recipe. Choose a fully cooked, spiral cut ham which weighs around 10 pounds for the best result.
The sweetness in this twice smoked ham recipe comes from the brown sugar, Vidalia onions and pineapple juice. Some people prefer to use apple juice in honey baked ham, and actually half apple juice with half pineapple juice is a great blend, if you want to try that.
Apple juice or apple cider is a great addition to the Traeger smoked ham. The garlic, peppercorns, coriander, cinnamon, and bay leaves add more aromatic flavours to the honey baked ham. It’s perfect for Easter Sunday when you are all out to impress, but I also love this smoked ham for Thanksgiving. Why not make honey baked ham for both? Really, you just can’t go wrong with festive ham recipes.
The smoked ham glaze features more brown sugar along with honey, madeira wine, balsamic glaze, and sherry. Or you can sub white wine for the madeira or sherry (not both, unless you add more sugar, else it will be much less sweet).
And those are all the ingredients you’ll need to make your own.
I bet you can already imagine how amazing this smoked sweet onion honey glazed ham is going to taste! And pre cooked ham on a Traeger smoker is something you might want to make every year – at least once!
Once the finishing touch or two are added to your festive holiday plate, everyone will be dying to grab their forks and enjoy!
How to Make this Honey Ham Recipe
For more detailed instructions with weights and measurements, jump to the printable recipe card.
Now you know what ingredients you need for smoking a ham with a smoked ham glaze, let’s take a look how to make it.
Apply the sugar: Rub brown sugar all over the ham first of all. Don’t be shy with the sugar in your brown sugar honey glaze – you can (and should) use a lot! Thanksgiving or Easter dinner calls for a beautifully sweet ham!
Smoke the ham: Next, put it in a roasting pan with the onions, garlic, cinnamon, bay leaves, and coriander. Add the pineapple juice and water and smoke it for an hour.
Make the glaze: You can then puree some of the smoked onions and then combine them with the remaining smoked ham glaze ingredients.
Add the glaze and cook the ham some more: After simmering the glaze for the smoked spiral cut ham until it’s thick, you can pour it over the meat. Now put it back on the pellet smoker or Traeger grill for a little while longer and let it rest before you serve it.
I’m sure you can imagine how incredible this Traeger ham recipe is going to taste, whether you’re making it for Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter.
A Closer Look at the Spiral Cut Smoked Ham Recipe
Perfect for cooking on the Traeger spiral ham is usually a bone-in ham which is cut into one big spiral shape to make it easier to cut and serve. The one potential problem with spiral ham is dryness because if you warm it back up it can dry out.
However, the best honey glazed smoked ham recipe will feature a sweet glaze to not only add flavour but to prevent the meat from drying out.
Don’t worry about a smoked ham Traeger dish being dry – the glaze simply won’t let that happen, which is great because nobody likes dried out double smoked ham! Once you’ve applied the brown sugar and other ingredients, the right internal temperature is reached, your smoked ham is done and it will be juicy!
What to Serve with Smoked Sweet Onion Honey Glazed Ham
If you’re making this Traeger smoked ham recipe for Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, you’ll already have some ideas about sides.
There are many side dish possibilities for smoked ham with a honey glaze. Consider mashed potatoes, cheesy vegetable casserole, sausage and cranberry stuffing, vegan gluten free cornbread, creamed spinach, or even a Brussels sprouts feta casserole. The ham is sweet so you might like to choose mostly savoury sides.
A Pellet Smoker or Traeger Grill is Perfect for Smoking a Ham
Although you can always warm a pre cooked ham or honey glazed smoked ham back up in the oven, that isn’t as much fun as smoking it! Pellet grills have been around since Traeger launched their first one about 40 years ago. And they’re only getting more popular over time.
One reason for pellet smoker or Traeger grill popularity is this kind of grill can hold a steady low temperature for hours and hours without you having to adjust or add anything. This makes pellet smokers ideal for not only smoked sweet onion honey glazed ham but also pulled pork, ribs, brisket, and so on.
Glazed Ham FAQs
You can keep leftovers for about 4 days in the refrigerator or for a month or so in the freezer. To reheat it, only reheat as much as you’re going to serve.
About 15 minutes in the oven at 325 degrees F will warm it back up nicely without drying it out. As a rule of thumb, give smoked sweet onion honey glazed ham leftovers about 10 minutes per pound when warming it back up. Of course you can also have leftover ham chilled, in a sandwich perhaps, make a ham soup, ham crescent cups or something like this beans and ham recipe.
You can use either kind for this recipe. I would recommend bone-in, either from the butcher or the grocery store if they have a good selection of meats.
When the bone is removed to make a ham boneless, the meat has to be reshaped a little which can affect the texture. Also, if you choose a bone-in ham, you can use the bone for a future recipe, such as ham and cannellini bean soup.
Smoked Sweet Onion Honey Glazed Ham Recipe
Smoked Sweet Onion Honey Glazed Ham
Ingredients
- 1 10-pound ham , spiral cut, pre-cooked
- 1 Cup brown sugar
- 2 onions, Vidalia, sliced
- 10 Cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 Teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 Teaspoon coriander seeds
- 2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 Cups water
- 1 Cup pineapple juice
Glaze
- 1 Cup onions, sliced, from above
- 1/2 Cup brown sugar
- 1/4 Cup balsamic glaze
- 2/3 Cup wine, madeira
- 1/4 Cup sherry
- 1/4 Cup honey
Instructions
- Preheat the smoker to 300 degrees F for 15 minutes lid closed.
- Coat ham in brown sugar. Place into a roasting pan and surround with onions, garlic, coriander, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves.
- Pour in the water and pineapple juice along the sides of the ham.
- Place into the smoker for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
- At the 1 hour mark, heat a sauce pan over medium heat. retrieve 1 cup of sliced onions from the smoker. Add onions to a food processor and purée.
- Add puréed onions, brown sugar, madeira, sherry, and honey to the saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 15 minutes.
- Pour ¾ of the glaze over the ham. Brush remaining glaze between the slices.
- Smoke for 20 more minutes, or until the internal temperature has reached 160 degrees F.
- Let the ham rest for 15 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
Whether you’re planning a meal for Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter, smoked ham on a Traeger smoker is perfect. Double smoked ham on a pellet grill with a honey glaze is so good – you just can’t go wrong if you decide to make it. You can get all the ingredients you need for boneless ham with a honey glaze from the grocery store.
The sweet, spicy flavour of the ham is incredible and there are so many wonderful sides that will go with such a dish. If you have any leftover ham, there are some great recipes you can make using it.
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Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a Canadian-based syndicated food, travel, and lifestyle writer, photographer, and creator at xoxoBella. She founded xoxoBella in 2015, where she shares her love for food, dogs, sustainability, fitness, crafts, outdoor adventures, travel, and philanthropy to encourage others to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places, and stand for a cause. Bella creates stress-free and family-friendly recipes for weeknight dinners and festive feasts.
We served it last Easter to the family and they’ve been bugging me for the recipe since
I made this and it was incredibly tasty! Yum!
Irresistibly yummy! This is now one of my top recipes.
I usually order a ham for Thanksgiving but that’s an expensive way of doing things, so I tried out this recipe and everyone said they liked it even better, so cheers for sharing!
I just got a smoker and can’t wait to try this