Best way to cook a fully cooked ham

September 8, 2020 10:56 AM

After spending this morning researching how to bake my first ever ham, I was disappointed that my grocery store did not have a bone-in option for me to choose from. How do I cook the one I bought for split pea soup?

My grocery store has a pretty large meat department, but was very lacking in the ham selection...there weren't any bone-in or cuts that weren't already fully cooked. Someone asked if I needed help and verified they were out of bone-in, so I ended up going with a 5 lb Kentucky Legend Hickory smoked ham (fully cooked and spiraled, not what I was looking for. Ham hocks were also unavailable.)

My question is this: what do I need to do to make this the moistest, most bad ass ham ever? Cooking options appear to be oven (convection or regular) or instant pot, for which I do not have the trivet if that matters. I am not sure if baking in the regular oven and continually basting will yield juicer results than the instant pot.

I don't know how much flavor the ham will have (ingredients list a 2% mixture including salts sugars and other fun chemicals), so I don't know if I should baste it with anything else. What I do not want is anything too sweet; I saw some recipes mentioning rosemary and mustard which sounds good, but really I'm fine with any flavor as long as it's not sweet.

And ultimately, the reason I first wanted to make a ham was to use the bone for an instant pot split pea soup recipe....most of which still say you can use the ham meat instead, but will it be too tough if it's being cooked twice (first by itself and then 15 min or so with the soup?) So bonus points for a good split pea soup recipe, instant pot or stovetop, that will work well with my finished ham product.

posted by andruwjones26 to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

One of the big brands recommends 12-15 minutes per pound at a very low oven of 275F, the key being to cover tightly with foil to prevent the ham from drying out.

Are you looking for the spectacle of a whole ham or are tenderness and soup bones the priority? In your position, I'd free up the bone with a boning knife, portion out the ham slices into enough for a meal + leftovers, and freeze a few few pounds of ham for future meals. It's just more tender on the first heating than after a round of reheating, which is why I don't suggest you heat up something that leaves you over four pounds of leftovers.
posted by fountainofdoubt at 11:22 AM on September 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Don’t do anything to the ham - just put it in the soup.
posted by lyssabee at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2020 [10 favorites]

I’m sorry - I may have misread your question. I would freeze whatever you don’t use in the soup without cooking. Dice some, slice some, and then you’ll have both to reheat as needed.
posted by lyssabee at 11:26 AM on September 8, 2020

Response by poster: Sorry to thread-sit, just adding clarifications: the ham is marked "off the bone" so unless I am misreading it (entirely possible) I don't think it has a bone for me to cut out. The entire cut of ham is too big/too much meat for the amount of soup, but I guess I could cut a chunk off of it to throw in the instant pot and save the rest to reheat later?
posted by andruwjones26 at 11:27 AM on September 8, 2020

Best answer: I would not instantpot an already cooked ham. What I would do is make the rest of the soup in the instantpot, if that's what you want, and then add the ham (diced) for a half hour or so on a very low stovetop simmer. I'd dice as much more ham as you want to use for future soup, and freeze that. Then slowly reheat whatever portion you want to eat now, tightly covered, with whatever glaze/flavor you desire. Good luck!
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 11:39 AM on September 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: After reading through more recipes it sounds like pre-chopping and adding some of the ham before cooking will work fine, I think my unfamiliarity with this dish and ham in general made me more concerned I'd screw this up. Thanks cooks of Metafilter, you have yet to let me down!
posted by andruwjones26 at 11:57 AM on September 8, 2020

Adding the ham bone into the soup is a way to create a flavorful broth for the soup. If your recipe calls for just water as the liquid, and you have no ham bone, your soup will be too bland. Replace the water with an equal amount of chicken broth or veggie broth (or a combo of these), so that your soup has a more flavorful base.
posted by hydra77 at 12:34 PM on September 8, 2020

PS: In my grocery store, the ham hocks / ham bones are sold in a completely separate place from the hams themselves. The hambones are in an odd refrigerated area by the breakfast sausage, and other odd bits like those pre-cooked, refrigerated mashed potatoes and buckets of pre-sauced pulled pork.
posted by hydra77 at 12:36 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's really hard to screw up ham. Whatever way you do it, it's not going to get super tough if it's been simmered for hours/instant potted in soup. I would not cook it first in the oven, because it's already cooked and that's just a waste of time and effort.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:35 PM on September 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

It's been awhile, but I think I just used bacon in my split pea soup.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:05 PM on September 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

Yeah, you can't screw it up. Just toss it in there w/ the rest of the soup and cook it together...it will make your soup taste better.
posted by nosila at 2:11 PM on September 8, 2020

It's already cooked. Just cut it up and put in the soup.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:07 AM on September 9, 2020