Air Fryer Ham with Honey Brown Sugar Glaze
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Air fryer with brown sugar honey glaze is juicy and flavorful!! You’ll be cooking this ham all the time because it’s so easy and delicious. Homemade air fryer honey baked ham is a game changer.
Easy Air Fried Recipe
There’s always an occasion for spiral ham or honey baked ham, especially when you learn how to cook a ham in the air fryer. Our air fried ham in the air fryer with brown sugar honey glaze is fantastic!! You’ll be cooking this smaller ham several times a year because it’s so easy and delicious. The small ham comes out juicy and flavorful with our homemade glaze. It’s perfect when you don’t have an oven to cook the ham in or if you’re tight on oven space. The air fryer is the perfect appliance to dedicate the ham to and you’ll realize how amazing the hot air technology is.
Video: Juicy Baked Ham Recipe in Air Fryer
How to Cook Air Fryer Honey Baked Ham
- Ham comes in so many different shapes, sizes and types. The same goes for different air fryers. So make sure to not buy a ham that’s too big for your air fryer.
- We suggest a fully cooked ham that’s about 2-3 pounds for most air fryers. If the ham is too large and touches the top heating element of your air fryer, you need to trim the bottom the ham.
- Even a small ham can end up cold in the center after air frying. So we suggest to take the fully cooked ham out of the fridge about 2 hours before cooking. This allows the fully cooked ham to come to room temperature a bit and after air frying, it will still be hot and juicy in the center.
- You have to wrap the ham in foil and make sure to give extra space for that too. Don’t let the foil be too close to the heating element, so it’s important to wrap the ham tight.
- If you buy a whole cooked ham, you’ll need to make criss cross cuts into the ham so the skin crisps up nicely. We love having an extra crispy top on the ham.
- Full detailed Instructions are in the recipe box below.
How Long to Cook Air Fried Ham with Brown Sugar Glaze?
Cooking times will vary because different air fryers cook at slightly different temperatures. And of course, ham sizes vary too. Our estimate is to cook about 15-20 minutes for every pound of fully cooked ham. Half way through the cooking time, you need to glaze again. When you’re cooking the ham during the last half, check it to make sure it’s not too dry. From there, you decide how much longer you want cook the ham. We like to finish the ham un-covered for the last 5 minutes for a crispy, caramel texture. All recipe details are in the recipe box below. And hey, do you like pineapple glaze? If so, try the glaze on our air fryer pineapple glazed ham recipe.
How Big of a Ham Can You Cook in the Air Fryer?
Generally, you’ll want a fully cooked ham that is 2-3 lbs. or less to cook in the air fryer. Any larger than 3 pounds will usually make the ham too close to the heating element. Make sure when you cook it, the foil isn’t touching the heating element at the top of your air fryer. If needed, you can trim down the bottom side of the ham so it isn’t too tall. Don’t use a bone-in hams. They are almost always too thick to fit in an air fryer.
What size of fully cooked ham for different air fryer styles? Photos
Our photos shows you how you can cook different types of ham for different air fryer styles. For Basket style, generally they are a little smaller so it’s ideal to creat a foil boat to hold in the juices. For oven style air fryers, you can usually fit a small baking sheet inside the cavity. If so, then a ham that fits the dish. But if you feel constrained to the baking dish, you can always create a foil boat that will allow you to fully use the width of the oven air fryer. This could mean that you can fit the largest sized ham in an oven air fryer. But hey, don’t go too big because if the ham barely fits, then it’ll be too close to the heating element and burn on the outside.
Air Fryer Ham with Honey Brown Sugar Glaze
Ingredients
- 2-3 lb. (.9-1.36 kg) boneless, fully cooked ham
Brown Sugar Glaze
- 1/2 cup (110 g) brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (85 g) honey
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) orange juice (or 1 orange juiced)
- 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) mustard (optional) or apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) Cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) Clove (optional)
- black pepper , to taste
Instructions
- Remove the ham from the fridge and allow to come to room tempurature about 2 hours before cooking.
- Make the Glaze: Combine the brown sugar glaze ingredients (brown sugar, honey, orange juice, optional mustard, cinnamon, clove (optional), and black pepper). Heat and whisk until brown sugar is dissolved and glaze is well combined. Set aside.
- Remove the netting from the ham. If ham is not pre-sliced, score the ham with shallow 1/2-inch criss-cross cuts.
- For Basket Style Air Fryers: Line the air fryer basket with 2 pieces of long, overlapping foil sheets (see step-by step photos on website write up above). Lay the ham on top of the foil and then brush about 1/3 of the glaze over the ham. Close the foil over the ham and wrap tightly.
- For Oven Style Air Fryers: Place the ham in an 8”x8” baking pan which fits in your air fryer (you may need to trim the edges of the ham to fit your pan and air fryer size). Brush with some of the glaze and close foil over the ham, wrapping tightly.
- Air Fry at 340°F for 25 minutes. Open the air fryer basket, carefully open the foil, and then brush the ham with more glaze (make sure to reserve some glaze for finishing & serving). Close the foil tightly, and Air Fry again at 340° for 25 minutes.
- After cooking for the 50 minutes, open up the foil again and now push the foil down around the edges of the ham if using the basket-style air fryer method. Create a boat with the foil that holds the juices and keeps the ham from drying out. If using the Oven Style Air Fryer method, just remove the foil from the 8"x8" pan.
- Brush with a little more glaze and increase heat to Air Fry at 360°F for 5 minutes, or until it is caramelized to your liking. Let ham rest for 5 minutes before serving.
- Optional serving: Combine the juices from the air fryer basket and the remaining glaze in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes or until thickened. Brush the glaze onto the ham when serving or serve alongside in a bowl for everyone to add as they like.
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
Try our Pineapple Glazed Air Fryer Ham Recipe Here
What’s better? Spiral cut ham vs hand scored
They’re both delicious but we’re partial to hand scored. The whole ham dries out a little less because it doesn’t have all the air space between the spiral cuts. When we hand score, we get the top crispy like any ham but we can at least custom slice the ham. Sometimes we can a thicker slice and someone else might want a thinner slice. So hand slicing is our preferred choice of ham.
How to freeze leftover ham?
We love cutting them into ham steaks then freezing them. It’s easy to eat this way and when they’re frozen in slices, they will thaw quicker too. Just store them in air tight ziplock plastic bags and they’ll lay flat in your freezer for easy storage. The fully ham will keep for up to 3 months. Try to eat the air fryer ham sooner than later. It can get freezer burn and easily dry out. So make some great dishes with our leftover ham recipe ideas.
Re-Heat Ham Steaks
Once you have thawed or leftover ham steaks, one easy way is to air fry them in the air fryer. They’ll be crispy and delicious. Here’s a great article about re-heating ham steaks in air fryer. Microwave is another option to re-heat as it will make the steaks moist.
Using pre-flavored ham like smoked flavor
There’s lots of different flavored hams out there in the market. Sure, you can certainly use pre-flavored hams like smoked flavor, honey mustard or honey flavor. Just customize the glaze in terms of how much you want to use. You can use as much as you want. But know that you have to use at least about half the glaze so that the ham doesn’t dry out for this air fryer ham recipe.
23 Comments on “Air Fryer Ham with Honey Brown Sugar Glaze”
Absolutely amazing!!! The ham came out juicy and the top was crispy and caramelized beautifully !!! I am so glad I came across your recipe, Thank you
Thanks Kathy! We’re so happy you loved the recipe.
This was great! Everyone loved it.
I could make the scalloped potatoes in the oven with ease as there were no temperature conflicts. Thanks for this.