Easy Holiday Ham Recipe: How to Cook a Bone-In Ham with Pineapple and Brown Sugar

Learn how to cook a tender, juicy bone-in ham in the oven using a roasting pan with this step-by-step guide to my family’s favorite holiday ham recipe. Packed with flavors from pineapple, brown sugar, and cloves, this recipe ensures your holiday table is as inviting as it is delicious!

Growing up, there was one thing for sure – we’d have ham for every single holiday (we weren’t turkey eating people!)

Honestly, I always looked forward to my mom’s ham because it was so tender, juicy and sweet – but not too sweet. The perfect combination of flavors to pair with the savory side dishes she would make!

Either my mom or dad would wake up extra early (I’m talking like 3am), get the ham all dressed in the pineapple, whole cloves and brown sugar and then place it in the oven to slowly bake all day at 200°F.

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The rich aromas of the ham baking would fill our home while we would get ready for church on Easter morning or be opening our presents on Christmas morning. Truly, if I had to describe what the holidays smell like; it would be a ham baking in the oven!

Some years, we’d have to delay dinner because the sides weren’t ready because the ham had taken longer to bake than others. Cooking was not my mom’s forté by any means 😂 She honestly dreaded cooking (and still does!) However, where my mom does shine, is the ability to create the most beautiful tablescapes. For real. She has true talent.

When I grew up, got married, moved 1,000 miles away, bought numerous houses, the only way to make the holidays feel like home was 1. invite all the family to our house 😂 2. bake a ham!

Over the years, I’ve baked the ham in my oven the traditional way as well as baked it in the crock pot all day long to free up space in my oven! …Crock-Pot Holiday Ham has always been one of my highest viewed recipes on this ol’ blog!

Cooking Tools

First, let’s go over the kitchen items you will need:

• Roasting pan – I use the same roasting pan that my mom always used, I figure, why change things up when the results are always so good! The key here is making sure that you have a large enough roasting pan to fit your ham! I do have the larger size; 18″.
• Baster – the item with the yellow squishy bulb below. This is a must! Every hour during the cooking process, you need to “wet/re-juice” your ham. To do this, you point the tip of the baster in the juice, squish the yellow bulb – and the juices will be sucked up into the baster. You then carefully squirt this over the entire ham many times during each “basting round”
• Injector – my parents never did this, however, my husband does…and it just makes the ham that much more tender. This works just like a syringe – fill the tube part of the syringe with either oil (like extra virgin, etc) or the juices from the pan. Stick the needle end of the syringe into the ham and slowly press down on the handle. The oil or juices will be injected into the ham. Repeat if necessary
• Digital Thermometer – there are many different types of meat thermometers, however, I personally like to use the kind that has a digital thermometer that has “cord”. You place the probe in the ham, the cord can be closed in the oven door and the digital reader sits on the counter. I like this best because you get true internal temperatures rather than what the thermometer reads after opening the oven and inserting the thermometer. I forgot to pull out the thermometer when I took this photo, but I have one at the end of this blog post so you can see what it looks like
• Toothpicks – these wooden toothpicks are used to create the pretty pineapple/cherry “flowers” on top of the ham

Ingredients

• Ham – my parents have always used a bone-in smoked ham, however, some years, I’ve had difficulty finding this! I’ve used no-bone, spiral cut, maple glazed hams before and the results are still just as good. Use whatever ham you can find
• Pineapple slices/rings – the pineapple and juices are used to sweeten the ham (ohhh it’s so good!) You can use pineapple chunks if you can’t find the rings, however, you won’t get the pretty pineapple/cherry flowers on top
• Brown sugar – when my aunt and mom used to make this recipe years and years ago, they used dark brown sugar, however, that is so hard to find at the stores these days! So we now use light brown sugar. Use what you can find!
• Whole cloves – this is something you cannot make a swap for. You have to uses WHOLE cloves, not ground. The whole cloves get poked into the ham and infuse flavor. When you’re done baking the ham and shred it, these whole cloves get removed
• Cherries – we use whole maraschino cherries, they add such a pretty, old-fashioned looking end result!

How To Cook A Bone-In Ham In The Oven In A Roasting Pan

1. Place the ham in the roasting pan. Using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife, cut slits in the ham all over

2. Pour all of the juices from the sliced pineapples all over the top of the ham

3. Add brown sugar and rub all over the ham. Use your fingers to open up the slits you cut and pack as much brown sugar into the slits as you possibly can

4. Insert a LOT of whole cloves all over the ham. Be sure to turn the pan around and get the back side of the ham

5. Secure pineapple rings all over the top of the ham using two wooden toothpicks per pineapple ring slice. Place one cherry on the tip of another toothpick and stick in into the ham in the center of the pineapple ring

6. Place in the oven and bake at 200°F. About once every hour, remove the lid using an oven mitt, set the lid aside (I place it on top of my glass cooktop on a towel). Basting the ham ensures that the meat will get and stay moist and be full of flavor! If you’d like, use the injector and inject oil or the pan juices during these basting sessions

7. Cook the ham until the internal temperature has reached 145°F. Remove from the oven and let rest for at least 3 minutes before slicing or shredding. *The whole cloves will easily fall out, if you prefer, you can remove them before slicing the ham

Video Tutorial

Cook Time Per Pound

Unfortunately, I’m going to be honest here, I can’t tell you how long to cook your ham for in the oven. So many factors go into the baking process:

• is your ham smoked?
• is your ham pre-cooked?
• does your ham have the bone in?
• no bone?
• is your ham spiral cut? (this type of cut takes less time to bake because the heat has an easier time penetrating through the ham because of all the slits/cuts)

What I can tell you is that if you bake the ham at 200°F, plan on cooking it all day long. You can bake it at 300°F if you are in a time crunch (although, this takes hours also!!! For the ham in this blog post, I baked it for 8 hours).

How To Tell When The Ham Is Cooked Enough?

While I can’t give you precise baking times, I can tell you that ham (pork) needs to be heated to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C) as measured with a food thermometer, followed by a 3-minute rest time.

Happy holiday ham baking my friends!!