Ham for two

December 15, 2023 3:35 PM

Ham is on sale at my local supermarket - there are only two of us who would eat it. Is it worth getting? If so, what should I do with it?

I'm a big fan of buying large amounts of cheap meat and then cooking it up and using it in lots of different dishes. For example, we'll get a duck or Cornish hens or a chicken and cook it up, and eat it as a roast, sandwiches, soups chili, over a few weeks. Ham is really cheap right now - what could I do with that? We're not anti-ham, but we haven't eaten or cooked a lot of it in our lives.

The hams in question are in the meat section (not deli), chilled (not frozen) and the labels just say "Classic Ham" and does not say if it is cooked already, smoked etc. I'm guessing it is a roast, because it's a large chunk of ham about the size of a basketball. So any tips on knowing what it is or how to prepare it in general would be great.

posted by Toddles to Food & Drink (20 answers total)

Oh so my uses. Do a few traditional ham dinners, ham heated in oven, sliced and add a few sides.When you are tired of that, slice some for ham and cheese sandwiches, day 3/4 lb. got the fridge. Ham and cheese omelette of course...diced ham for adding to a salad...finely chop for ham salad. BTW, ham freezes well...When all the meat is used up, I always make split pea soup with the ham bone added.
posted by Czjewel at 3:50 PM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yes, absolutely get it! I second ham sandwiches, ham dinner, omelette and pea soup and would also add making a big pot of beans with chunks of ham and also just throwing some slices in a pan for breakfast with fried eggs.

A ham is the rear leg of a pig, usually sold in two halves. The butt is the top portion and the shank is the lower portion. The shank is leaner and more flavourful as these muscles are used more and is recommended if you have a choice.
posted by ssg at 4:01 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Freeze what you don't use, and then you can thaw it out to use for Hawaiian pizzas.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 4:17 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Have you tried making steamed hams? (Come on, we were all thinking it)
posted by jozxyqk at 4:42 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

You'll have to read on the package wether it is cooked already, ham should be, but there can be some confusion about the terminology depending on where you are.

If it is raw, I often prefer to poach it rather than roast it.

Ham is very lean meat, for pork, so it isn't really good at re-heating. But cold cuts are great for everything sandwich and salad. You can slice up the ham and freeze the slices separated by waxed paper, in freezer bags where you have squeezed out the air, then take out slices as you need them. Thaw in the fridge.

That said, there are exceptions to every rule. I find ham is a very nice addition to creamy, cheesy dishes, like this leek and ham gratin or Quiche Lorraine. I often make a pasta with peas and ham in a cream sauce. There will be garlic and chili in there too.

I agree the bone is excellent for soups like split pea or borscht, if there is a bone.
posted by mumimor at 4:43 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Put the ham bone in with the ingredients in pea soup, and take it out when you are ready to serve. Diced ham is nice as a pea soup topping, too. Or you can throw it in any soup at the end (reduce or eliminate any salt in the recipe; ham is salty enough you probably won't need salt.)

Diced, you can freeze it in portions and thaw for pizza, soup, macaroni salad, quiche, and so on.
posted by blnkfrnk at 4:54 PM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I put chopped ham in split pea soup, my mom always preferred navy bean soup.
posted by vunder at 5:21 PM on December 15, 2023

I chop ham into small cubes, and freeze them in vacuum sealed packets of like 1/3 cup. Then whenever I make Mac & cheese, I thaw a packet and some peas to mix in.
posted by lorimt at 6:15 PM on December 15, 2023

Ham on biscuits is a delightful upgrade from ham sandwiches. Cubes can go in fried rice. Just eating little bits of ham for a salty snack Eggs benedict. I’m having ham soon and I’m looking forward to it so much!
posted by momus_window at 6:24 PM on December 15, 2023

I love to buy spiral cut hams when they are on sale. For our family of 4 we eat it for dinner the first night and then I usually freeze half of the leftovers right away. This is with a 6-8 lb ham. If there is no freezing it's just too much ham. I imagine this would be doubly true for a family of two. But yea, so many great uses. Ham and eggs is my favorite. And ham fried rice.
posted by MadMadam at 6:58 PM on December 15, 2023

Fried rice!!! You can cube some of it up small and freeze it in a bag, shaking it every few hours so it doesn’t all clump together and then just scoop some out when you want to make fried rice, similar to using frozen peas.

Basically for any type of Hawaiian or East Asian dish that would use spam, you can sub in plain ham. Depending on its saltiness you may want to adjust seasonings but that’s simple enough. Ham musubi instead of spam musubi is super yummy, just make a quick sweet soy glaze for the ham as you pan fry it (literally just mix up some soy sauce and sugar or honey and add it to the hot pan to coat your meat). Chunks of ham in macaroni salad. Kimchi fried rice of course with ham and a fried egg. Chewy saimin noodles in a simple broth with seared ham slices and scallions.

I do also like a pineapple ham pizza situation. Very Traditional Christmas English muffin pizzas: red and green bell peppers, marinara sauce, mozzarella, thinly sliced ham, pineapple chunks, English muffins. Oven or toaster oven at about 425F. Arrange English muffin halves on a baking rack that fits into a sheet pan to catch any mess. Dollop of sauce, sprinkle of mozz. Then, key, arrange bell pepper pieces in green triangle with red pepper, pink ham, and yellow pineapple decorations. Also good with pesto instead of red sauce of course. Bake in oven until cheese is melty and ham starts to crisp.
posted by Mizu at 7:42 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Eating slices at night with cashews and cheddar and cornichons. Add pepperoni if you want to pretend to be fancy.
posted by credulous at 8:01 PM on December 15, 2023

If it’s any consolation, this is a perennial issue.

One passage in my Oxford Companion to Food mentions a relevant (English or Irish) traditional formulation, "eternity: two people and a ham."
posted by jamjam at 8:02 PM on December 15, 2023 [10 favorites]

As a counterpoint to all this enthusiasm: I went for it last year and no, it was not worth it. I haven't been able to eat non-bacon pork since.
posted by teremala at 8:30 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

I just bought a spiral sliced ham for Christmas Eve. It's worth it to get the spiral slices - much easier. Leftover ham goes in eggs, wraps, soups, sandwiches, fried rice, scalloped potatoes with ham, and I'll eat too much so I freeze a bunch. The ham bone makes excellent broth, great for bean soups. Ham is leaner these days, but some ham fat, ham and green beans is a classic for a reason. It was .98/lb, so a bargain even if I leave half with my son's family, which I will.
posted by theora55 at 9:59 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

jamjam beat me to the thing about eternity is two people and a ham. We got a beautiful ham in our heritage half hog order. We did all the things with it. That was five years ago and we haven’t been able to face the prospect of ham in any form since. It was a delicious ham so I would say it was worth it but I wouldn’t want to do it with a supermarket ham.
posted by HotToddy at 3:41 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I would check the ingredients for nitrates or other preservatives. I don’t think they’re healthful and avoid them personally.
posted by waving at 5:03 AM on December 16, 2023

I slice extra ham into small pieces, freeze on a tray, and then bag it. Good for breakfast sandwiches for months.
posted by pjenks at 6:18 AM on December 16, 2023

The difficulty with ham is that it always tastes the same. Which is I think why it has a bad reputation for leftovers. I would cook and eat. Save a little for cold cuts but no more than 1 meal, and cube/slice the rest and freeze. Then, the trick is not to try to use it up too quickly (or you'll get tired of it). Things that are improved by ham can include omelette, scrambled egg, quiche, pasta, salad, fried rice, pizza.
posted by plonkee at 9:42 AM on December 16, 2023

We are a 2 person household that now has 2 spiral cut hams in our spare fridge due to the sales. This is exciting because we no longer have any ham left in our freezer from the Easter ham sales.

We prefer to spend a few pennies more on the spiral cut (which are on sale now at the best prices you'll see until closer to Easter) than the butt or shank because the spiral is just easiest for us to deal with. Most hams like that at the supermarket are usually already cooked or cured, but if you need to cook it, instructions are included with the ham, usually on the backside of the label. With the spiral cut, it's always cooked -- we can then further "bake" it with the honey or sugar glaze that comes with it, but most of the time we don't bother unless we want that added flavor.

Spiral slices are portioned into ziploc/freezer bags to be used as sandwich fillings (breakfast egg sandwiches or typical lunch sandwich) or just to be snacked on with a cheese and cracker plate. We keep a couple bags in the fridge for immediate consumption over the week (because it's exciting to have a fresh batch of ham!) but freeze the rest.

The parts of the ham that are not the easy spiral slices get chopped up into cubes that we use for a variety of things: pizza, frittatas, casseroles, fried rice, soup, cobb salads. Those are also frozen in portion sizes that we pull out and thaw as needed.

The ham bones are used for soup (along with extra chopped bits of ham). If I don't have time to make the soup right away, then the bones get frozen as well.

Again, we do have a fair amount of freezer space (two fridge freezers and a standalone freezer), so we plan on purchasing this much ham each year knowing we can store it. The Christmas and Easter sales keep us stocked up throughout the year, so it never feels like we're overwhelmed with ham except for the initial day of breaking it down into freezer bags (and we just recently acquired a Foodsaver, so now it'll be vacuum sealed freezer bags!).
posted by paisley sheep at 10:35 AM on December 16, 2023