dr. pepper glazed easter ham

Happy Easter friends!

Here’s where I tell you all about the great food I made for Easter after it’s already over and you’re no longer looking for Easter meal ideas.

It’s cool, just bookmark it for next year.

My family is in Charleston for Easter which makes me very jealous, and the GS is from Rhode Island which is kind of a hike to go up just for the day. So I decided to make us a feast!

I went shopping for a ham on Friday and was typing out an angry text to the GS like “UGH this grocery store is so ghetto all of the hams are already pre-cooked.”

Jokes on me. A quick Google search told me that all hams are already cooked. That’s what makes it a ham, apparently.

Forgive me for my blasphemy, Harris Teeter.

I guess people always buy them pre-cooked and then add their own glazes, sauces, and/or pineapple rings and maraschino cherry arrangements. I went with a glaze recipe from my girl Ree Drummond. I had to cut it in half because she used basically a whole pig, and my ham was only 8 pounds.

Only 8 pounds. For two people.

We went all over the place looking for Dr. Pepper for the glaze and every store ONLY HAD DIET. I asked Ethan if he thought they were all out of regular Dr. Pepper because everyone was using it to glaze their Easter hams, and he looked at me like I was insane. Fair.

I finally found it at Royal Farms this morning, where I entered looking like a psycho because I taught Body Pump in all neon clothing today as an homage to Easter egg colors. Luckily Royal Farms, unlike Harris Teeter, actually is kind of ghetto so no one really gave me a second look.

In addition to the delicious ham, I also made roasted asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes, and a Portuguese sweet bread which I’ll share with you later this week.

This is what I used for the glaze:

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar

1/4 cup spicy brown mustard

2 tbs apple cider vinegar

1 cup Dr. Pepper soda

I combined the brown sugar, mustard, and vinegar in a small saucepan over medium heat until it started to bubble. Then I added the Dr. Pepper, and lowered the heat to a simmer. I let it cook for at least 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it reduced. Then I let it sit for a while and cool- it thickened up more in this phase.

I tented my ham with aluminum foil and baked it at 300 degrees for an hour. Then I pulled it out, brushed the glaze all over it, and put it back in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes without the foil.

You can definitely cook it longer in the initial phase- my packaging said 13-15 minutes per pound which would have been closer to 2 hours. I only pulled it out early because I had other uses for my oven and didn’t really care if it was completely heated through because, oh yeah, it was about 10 times more ham than we actually needed.

I do recommend buying a ham that isn’t already pre-sliced, because then it will probably dry out. The Pioneer woman made diagonal cuts in hers and stuck in a bunch of fresh cloves but I skipped that step.