Air Fryer Ham with Pineapple Glaze
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Our air fryer glazed ham with a homemade pineapple glaze is fantastic. It’s perfect for smaller whole hams or when you need to free-up your oven space. After tasting this air fryer spiral ham recipe (or non-spiral ham), you’ll realize how easy it is and want to make it more often!
Why We Love This Air Fried Ham Recipe
Our popular air fryer honey baked ham recipe was a hit so we have a pineapple glazed version. There’s always an occasion to cook spiral ham or a small whole ham. You’ll be cooking this smaller ham several times a year because it’s so easy and delicious.
- Our easy pineapple glaze adds a bright, savory and holiday inspired flavor.
- The small ham comes out juicy and flavorful with our homemade glaze. You can decide how sweet you want the 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: Pineapple Glazed Ham Recipe in Air Fryer
Tips: How to Cook Pineapple Glazed Air Fryer Ham
- Make sure to not buy a ham that’s too big for your air fryer. Ham comes in so many different shapes, sizes and types. The same goes for different air fryers.
- For air fryers, the best fully cooked ham size is 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 that isn’t spiraled, 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.
Timing: How Long to Cook Air Fried Ham with Pineapple 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.
Size: How Big of a Ham Can You Cook in the Air Fryer?
Start with fully cooked ham that is 2-3 lbs. or less to cook in the air fryer. Whole hams that are than 3 pounds will usually place 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. This air fryer spiral ham recipe is also for a non-spiral ham (or whole ham).
Air Fryer Ham With Pineapple Glaze
Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds (907 – 1360 g) boneless, fully cooked ham
Pineapple Juice Glaze
- 1 cup (240 ml) pineapple juice
- 1/2 cup (110 g) brown sugar , or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) ground cloves (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) salt , or to taste
- 3 pineapple rings
- Optional – a few maraschino cherries or cranberries , for garnish
Instructions
- Remove the ham from the fridge and allow to come up to room temperature, about 2 hours before cooking.
- Make the Glaze: Add pineapple juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, optional ground cloves and salt to pan. Simmer on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes or until is reduced to about half or until it starts to thicken a bit. Remove from heat.
- If needed, remove the netting from the ham. If ham is not pre-sliced, score the ham with shallow 3/4-inch criss-cross cuts.
- For Basket Style Air Fryers: Line the air fryer basket with 2 pieces of long, criss-crossed foil sheets. Lay the ham on top of the foil and then brush with some of the glaze to coat 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/170°C for 25 minutes. Open the foil and 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°/170°C for 25 minutes. After air frying 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.
- Add the slices of pineapple on the top of the ham. Spread more glaze over everything.
- Increase heat to Air Fry at 360°F/180°C for about 5 minutes, or until caramelized to your liking. Let ham rest for 5 minutes before serving. Place the the maraschino cherries or cranberries in the center of the pineapple rings for optional garnish.
- Optional serving: Combine the juices from the air fryer basket and the remaining glaze in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook for a couple minutes or until slightly thickened. Brush the glaze onto the ham when serving or serve in a bowl.
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
Can you use fresh pineapple?
Sure You can use fresh pineapple if you like. Some stores sell pre-sliced fresh pineapple so it saves a step. If the produce section of your market doesn’t sell pre-sliced fresh pineapple, then just buy a whole fresh one and carve it. The bright flavors of fresh fruit is amazing on the ham.
Love Honey Baked Ham? Try our Air Fryer Honey Ham Recipe Here.
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.
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 spiral ham recipe.
More Easy Ham Or Pork Recipes:
- Quick ham and bean soup
- Instant Pot ham and bean soup
- Grilled glazed Asian meatballs
- Oven baked honey ham
- Air Fryer Holiday Thanksgiving Recipes
- All Our Best Air Fryer Recipes
- Here’s a great Ham 101 discussion that talks about differences between country ham and other types of hams.
4 Comments on “Air Fryer Ham with Pineapple Glaze”
Really happy to find a glazed ham recipe that I can cook in the the air fryer. Loved your recipe.
Absolutely fantastic. I did a test batch this past weekend and it’s perfect. Will be doing this for Thanksgiving.
I’ll clearly be making this all year round. It came out so good.
We made this for thanksgiving and it was such a hit. The pineapple glaze was the best.