Sous vide ham with brown sugar honey glaze

Posted on December 19, 2021December 21, 2021 by Matt Todd

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As I’ve shared before, I’ve begun experimenting with my Anova precision cooker and discovering the joys of the sous vide method of cooking. With the holidays in full-swing, I decided to give ham a try.

Ham’s already precooked, right? So this isn’t necessarily something you can screw up. Well…I’m sure you can screw it up, but you might have to work pretty hard to screw up ham. The ease and convenience of sous vide ham was enticing. I really wanted to roast some carrots for this meal, because roasted carrots has become one of our favorite veggies. So I needed to keep the oven free for the carrots. Yet another reason to give sous vide ham a try!

I was discussing this with family member of mine. She didn’t think it would work. “It’ll be too rubbery,” she said.

Well, there was only one way to find out. I bought a small ham and gave it a try. I also made a honey glaze to finish the ham after it finished in the water bath.

What I used:

To sous vide the ham

Boneless ham – the one I used was approximately 3 lbs. You can use whatever size you need
Anova precision cooker
Large stock pot
Gallon Ziploc bag^
Aluminum foil
Rimmed baking sheet
Carving knife

For the glaze

1/2 cup Brown sugar (packed)
1/4 cup Orange Blossom Honey (I used some from Asheville Bee Charmer)

Here’s what I did:

Fill stock pot with water. Set precision cooker at 140° F. Allow water to heat to preset temperature.
Seal ham in Ziploc bag.* Place sealed ham in water bath.
Cook for 3-8 hours.
Make your glaze.
- Add brown sugar and honey to saucepan.
- Cook over medium-high heat, stirring regularly. Bring to simmer.
- Reduce heat to medium-low. Continue to simmer until it’s thick and syrupy.
With 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve the ham, preheat oven to 500 ° F.⁺
Remove ham from water bath. Remove ham from packaging and pat dry.
Place ham on baking sheet lined with aluminum foil.
Cover sous vide ham with 1/2 of the glaze.
Bake in oven for 5 minutes. Add remaining glaze. Bake 5 more minutes.
Remove sous vide ham from oven. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.
Carve and serve!

The verdict

I served this with roasted carrots and stovetop potatoes au gratin. And when Aly took a bite of the sous vide ham, here’s what she said:

That’s the best ham I’ve ever had!
Aly

That’s a ringing endorsement if I ever heard of one!

Oh. And it wasn’t rubbery at all.

Endnotes

^You could also invest in a vacuum sealer and use it instead of a Ziploc bag.

*From what I read, you don’t even have to remove the ham from the package. You can just throw the prepackaged ham in the water bath. I didn’t do that this time. I might try it next time I sous vide ham, though, just to see how it works.

⁺This is where sous vide is really handy. I roasted the carrots (I’ll share that magic another time) in the oven and then raised the temperature after I was done cooking.

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Matt Todd

Howdy. I'm Matt. My wife, Christy, and I have four kids and two dogs, I'm passionate about orphan care. I'm a die-hard fan of the Evansville Aces, the Indiana Hoosiers, and Star Wars. I'm trying to live life by the Todd family motto: "It behooves us to live!"