Enjoy a Smoked Easter Ham

This smoked Easter ham recipe is good any time of year, not just on Easter Sunday. It's an easy recipe that relies on the flavor of a good quality spiral sliced ham. You don't have to worry about adding extra seasonings to this one.

For this recipe I used a Cook's brand spiral sliced honey ham, one I've found to taste great in the past. The nice thing about a spiral sliced ham is that the smoke flavor is able to permeate deeply into the meat, giving you a nicely smoked ham for any occasion.

Smoked Easter Ham Recipe

INGREDIENTS

One good quality spiral sliced ham, 8 to 10 pounds.

Smoking wood - apple, oak, cherry or your favorite.

Heavy Duty aluminum foil

Creating a Great Tasting Double Smoked Ham

Place the ham into a shallow baking pan. This will keep all the juices from running out into your smoker, plus you might be able to use the juice for sauce or gravy.

Bring your smoker up to temperature, in the range of 200-225 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the ham-in-pan into your smoker, and place your thermometer(s) where appropriate.

I like to use one in the center of the ham, away from the bone, and another that has the probe exposed to the smoke chamber space right next to the ham. That way I can monitor the smoker temp from indoors...

Smoke the ham for three hours, adding several chunks or foil pouches of smoker wood during that time. A 10 pound ham is a lot of meat to smoke, and 4 or 5 additions of smoker wood is usually not too many. If you prefer a less smokey flavor, keep it down to 2 or 3 additions.

After three hours, the temperature of the ham might be up to only 80 degrees or so. At that time, seal the ham into the pan with a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil.

This will help getting the internal temperature up to the recommended 140 degrees. Increase the temperature of the smoker to 300 degrees if you can.

If not, plan to continue cooking the ham for another 3 hours or so. At a higher temperature, it should finish off in a couple of hours.

Once the temperature of the ham reaches 140, remove it and let it rest for 15 minutes before serving. Drizzle the packet of ham glaze over the ham as it rests.

About Fully Cooked Hams

A fully cooked ham is just that...completely cooked. But it should still be heated up to a minimum of 140 degrees, just to make sure it's safe. A ham that is uncooked has to reach a temperature of 160 to be safe to eat.

Adding Flavor To Your Easter Ham

You can also add extra flavor to your ham before smoking if you want. Use your favorite dry rub, but try to use one that has little or no salt. The ham will be salty enough as it is.

And before adding the dry seasoning, try rubbing about 1/4 cup of yellow, Dijon, or even spicy brown mustard all over the surface. The dry rub will stick tenaciously, so the flavor will remain and not run away with the juices.

Ham glazes are also a good vehicle for adding flavor. There are many varieties available in grocery stores (look near the jellies and peanut butter). It's not difficult to make your own ham glaze, like this cherry-based ham glaze I made last year.