Root Beer Ham Recipe (2024)

I'm partial to scalloped or au gratin potatoes, or macaroni and cheese to go along with the ham. For a green vegetable, how about braised collards or cabbage, or a combination of the two. Some baked beans would also be nice.

I’ve been making cookbook author Martha Hall Foose’s recipe in her book “Screen Doors and Sweet Tea” for “Barq’s Root Beer-Glazed Ham” for years. The pages still stick together from making this too often. The kicker in the recipe is the glaze: root beer, ketchup, dark brown sugar, zest and juice of lemon and yellow mustard. It’s reason enough to get this wonderful book.

My mother always basted ham with Coca-Cola, and she always let me have what was left in the bottle. I've made ham basted with co*ke for many people who swear they don't like ham, only to take second and third portions! I heartily endorse this variation by Eric Kim.

If I ever see a spiral ham again it will be too soon

We do it up with my grandmother's baked beans, mac & cheese, Vermont brown bread and (this is crucial) Napa cabbage picnic salad: 2/3 c. slivered almonds, 8 c. Napa cabbage, sliced thinly, 12 oz snow peas, cut on the diagonal, 1 & 1/3 c. slivered radishes, 1 & 1/3 c. slivered green onion, 1 & 1/3 c. diced parsley. Dressing: 3T rice wine vinegar, 2T sugar, 2T soy sauce, 1 minced clove garlic, 1/2 t. sesame oil, 1/2 t. ground ginger, 1/4 t. cayenne, 1 c. mayoAwesome!!

Sure. Reduce the liquid. My wife says, "eternity is two people and a ham"

This simple recipe looks like a winner, so I will make this for the holidays for sure- Thank you!

We have a pineapple bread pudding thing we have made for years to go with ham. Would also do broccoli of some sort. Scalloped potatoes would be wonderful, too! Maybe some lingonberry or cranberry sauce for some tang on the side?

Could you make this with a bonless ham? (We are only 2 people and even a semi-boneless half ham is too big for us.)

Delicious exactly as written. I served it with garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed haricot verts. Total winner.

This was delicious! I had a small bone-in ham, under 4 pounds, so reduced the ingredient list by half. Loved it and will make it again with a larger ham. Yummy!

I believe the "cut side" refers to the exposed face of the ham, not the scoring as part of the recipe.

I would love to make this, however, where I live, the grocery stores are carrying only spiral-sliced hams, which I really don't like. They dry out so quickly, and you're always left with a center chunk around the bone that is difficult to deal with. Please bring back the traditional, semi-boneless or bone-in half ham - UNSLICED.

I like colcannon with ham - 6 russet potatoes, cooked and mashed with plenty of butter and cream, 1/2 head of cabbage, shredded and 1/2 large sweet onion cooked with lots of butter (I melt 1 cube of butter in a sauce pan and add the cabbage and onion and cook on low heat with the lid on the pan until veggies are tender and translucent). Mix the potatoes with the cabbage and serve - divine.

Sounds delicious. On the Canadian prairies this would be served with scalloped potatoes and curried peaches. Just tinned peaches tipped in a Pyrex dish and sprinkled lavishly with curry powder. Bake for 1/2 an hour at 350. Strange but good.

So delicious! I made this for Christmas Day lunch. The glaze was so delicious and was quickly gobbled up, next time I will double.

Made this again but with a 5 pound boneless ham (from Costco). Used 1 can of root beer but kept everything else the same amounts. Sauce boiled and thickened quickly in a medium sized fry pan/ skillet. It was delicious, grandsons loved it.

Delicious! Though a few notes for next time: -be careful scoring ham, score too far and the fat will fall off. One side looked like the picture, the other like a massacre. -The gravy was great, but toeing the line of too sweet. Next time I might use less brown sugar and kick the vinegar up a notch. -excellent bone and leftovers for soup.-It needs to be balanced by the other dishes: potatoes au gratin, roast carrots, and strawberry spinach salad were good but far too sweet accompaniments.

We got a spiral cut ham—I think next time we’ll reduce the cook time a little, since the ham closest to the cuts was more dry (but still delicious!) Given the time it saved us to have it pre-cut, I’m willing to experiment to get it right!

The recipe is so clear. I don't care for root beer and have been looking for a cognt recipe for cola ham. Do you think it will work to just switch the root beer for cola? I usually serve w/ a cumberland sauce. I can only get spiral cut hams. Never had a dryness prob. Maybe because I always have lots of glaze?? Any tips to protect from dryness or the idea of subbing cola for root beer much appreciated. Thank you. CH

For Christmas Eve: this can be made early in the day! And serve with a spinach gratin and mashed potatoes placed into a baking dish and reheated along with hot curried fruit. So great and easy to be made in advance.

So much better with the uncooked but cured ham joints you get in the UK (with the Nigella Lawson recipe), which I just cannot find in the US. A butcher looked at me like I was insane.

Followed the recipe to the “T”. It tasted so bad a threw the ham away

This was super easy and a crowd pleaser. I made it in one of those oven bags, which made clean up easy. And the ham was SO tasty. Definitely the only way I will be cooking my inevitable yearly free supermarket ham!

Wow this was good. Scored the ham a bit too deep so I'll know next time. Make sure to reduce cooking liquid in a large skillet. Even with the large skillet at a brisk rolling boil the reduction process took 15 minutes. I was a goof ball and didn't turn the ham over to expose the smooth surface (per the photo - duh) so the presentation wasn't as nice as it might have been. Served with crispy smashed potatoes, roasted carrots with a hot honey glaze and lemon zest and an arugula salad w/shaved Parm

If you put the juice in a skillet / fry pan and let it boil, it will reduce very quickly. I timed it today and it took 4 mins for it to reduce to such a point that I was concerned it would burn!

Good root beer vs bad? Is it the bouquet, perhaps the depth and complexity? Never mind bought 2 cans at local convenience store. Great recipe!

no root beer on hand. used ginger beer. give it a try.

The glaze never reduced. Still a tasty ham, but waiting over an hour for the sauce to reduce to a “syrupy” consistency (which never happened) wasn’t great

When this says reduce in a skillet - it means a skillet. Not a sauce pan, skillet. It’ll take forever to reduce otherwise.