Easy smoked christmas ham with apricot glaze

If you want to serve something impressive during the holidays without spending hours in the kitchen, this easy smoked Christmas ham with apricot glaze is precisely what you’re after. It looks like you went all-in on a festive BBQ project, but it’s surprisingly simple to pull off.

With just a few basic ingredients, a touch of apple wood smoke, and a shiny layer of sweet and slightly spiced glaze, this ham turns any Christmas dinner into a proper feast.

This recipe uses a whole cooked hind ham. Your butcher might call it something else. Names like holiday ham, country ham, rustic ham, or farmer’s ham all pop up from time to time. They’re all variations of cured and cooked (and sometimes smoked) hind ham. It’s the kind you’d usually slice for sandwiches.

Most of these hams aren’t truly smoked, but finished with a bit of liquid smoke and colouring. Not a big deal, because we’re going to give it proper smoke ourselves.

To make the ham special, we coat it with mustard and brown sugar. The mustard helps the sugar stick. As the ham smokes, the sugar melts and combines with the mustard, creating a lightly spicy caramelised crust. After the flavour of the ham itself, this becomes the next delicious layer.

We place the coated ham on a cooling rack and smoke it for about two hours with apple wood at 120°C (250°F) in our Kamado Joe. A small pan underneath catches the drippings and melted sugar.

Otherwise, those drippings hit the heat deflector, burn, and leave a nasty smell that clings to your ham and leaves a sooty layer. No thanks.

While the ham is smoking, you can make the glaze. Melt the butter slowly, then stir in the remaining ingredients. Don’t let the glaze boil, or it will become too thick. Boiling can also make the cinnamon and star anise taste bitter, and it might scorch the ginger.

Once the ham reaches an internal temperature of about 60°C (140°F), you’ll see that the mustard and sugar have formed a beautiful crust. This is when you brush on the glaze for that extra layer of flavour.

Be generous with the glaze. Since you’re slicing the ham thin later, each slice will only carry a thin layer of that crust. To help the glaze caramelise, raise the barbecue temperature to around 160°C (320°F).

The fact that you can turn a store-bought cooked ham into something this festive is fantastic. And if you don’t tell your guests, they’ll be convinced you spent days preparing it.

Before slicing, we sprinkled a bit of chopped parsley on top, just for colour. And then it’s precisely what you want on your holiday table.

If you’re making this easy Christmas ham on your barbecue, let us know in the comments. Even better: snap a photo and share it on Instagram. Tag @bbqhelden so we can check out your creation.