Air fryer ham is the best way to get super moist and flavorful ham that your whole family will love! Whether you are serving this up for the holidays, or just because you love a good ham, our air-fried ham recipe gives you the perfect ham and brown sugar glaze with dijon mustard, sweetener, and cinnamon, plus orange juice and apple cider vinegar to create a dinner that is a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!
Can You Air Fry Ham?
First things first, you might be wondering if it's even possible to cook a ham in an air fryer? After all, most holiday hams are enormous and barely fit in a crockpot let alone a smaller unit like an air fryer.
Thankfully, if you're serving a smaller group this year making a ham in air fryer is the BEST way to make your holiday ham! If you only need to cook a 3-5 lb ham, air frying will seriously be the best way to do it and it'll only take 35-45 minutes. The limiting factor here will be the size of your air fryer of course. The smaller the model, the smaller the ham.
For this recipe, we used our small Farberware air fryer that only has a 3.2 L capacity and is generally best for cooking just 2 maybe 3 people. We were able to cook a 3 lb uncured ham on its side perfectly in our model. If you have a medium or large size model, you'll be able to air fry a 4 lb ham or possibly even a 5 pounder.
Honey Ham in Air Fryer
Ham is generally a dish that is served only a few times a year, and so there is a lot of pressure to get it right every time. Thankfully, my family loves this salty pork meal - especially when served with a sweetened sauce. For our air fryer ham, we are creating a new twist on a classic dish and using one of todays' best kitchen gadets available: the air fryer.
By itself, ham is a great option for most modern diets including gluten-free, low-carb and keto, or paleo. Adding a brown sugar glaze can make the meal higher in carbs, but if you are following a strict keto lifestyle simply use an approved keto substitute.
Typically served as a holiday meal, air fryer ham will accompany many of your favorite side dishes including roasted vegetables, a variety of potatoes, and even a side salad.
Oh, and the leftovers make a great sandwich, hot or cold, or addition to a salad!
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Create a mouth-watering brown sugar glaze in just a few minutes by combining butter, apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, cinnamon, gloves, sweetener, and orange juice. Not only will this glaze create a wonderful layer of flavor for your ham, but it will also help keep it super moist during cooking.
- Speaking of moist, air fryer ham is the moistest way to serve ham. Ever!
- Air fryer ham will not make a huge mess of your air fryer when you follow our easy to use directions for cooking.
Create a super simple yet flavorful holiday meal by serving your air fryer ham with brown sugar glaze alongside our insant pot scalloped potatoes, roasted butternut squash and Brussel sprouts, and cauliflower and broccoli salad.
Ingredient Notes
Whether you opt for a spiral ham or an uncut one, your air fryer ham with maple glaze will make the perfect centerpiece for your holiday table. We are combining fresh ham with a glaze made from apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, cinnamon, gloves, sweetener, and orange juice.
- boneless ham - either spiral or uncut will work. If you have a bone-in ham, you are going to need to increase the air fryer cook time
- butter
- apple cider vinegar
- Dijon mustard
- salt
- cinnamon
- ground cloves
- sweetener - use your preferred option of either brown sugar, coconut sugar, honey, or erythritol brown sugar substitute
- orange juice - you could also opt for either apple or pineapple juice
Equipment
An Air Fryer- We have an Omni Plus oven style air fryer and a small 3.2L Farberware basket style air fryer.
Diet Adaptions
- Keto - Use a sugar substitute instead of brown sugar. The original recipe calls for so little juice, your carb count should still be low enough to comply.
Step by Step Instructions
We are going to start cooking our air fryer ham by first making the brown sugar glaze. From there we are going to add the glaze to our ham, wrap it in foil, and air fry. A little more glaze followed by a few additional minutes in the air fryer and your ham will be ready to take center stage on your dinner table.
Air Fryer Ham Temperature
Your air fryer ham is going to need to cook at two different temperatures.
It will start out at 300F for the first 30-minutes of cook-time. The remaining 5 minutes will be at 400F.
The lower temperature is needed to ensure the inside of the ham has time to cook all the way through. The higher temperature is so the outside of the ham and the glaze get the opportunity to crisp up before serving.
Prep Ingredients
To begin, using a small saucepan over medium-low heat melt the butter. Add the apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, cinnamon, gloves, sweetener, and orange juice to the pan.
Stir the sauce ingredients and cook for a few minutes until the sweetener is broken down and heated through. Set aside.
If your ham is in a netting, remove it.
If your ham is uncut, add several slices partway through the meat. The goal is not to create full slices all the way through, but space for the glaze to get into the meat.
Lay the ham on a large piece of aluminum foil, making sure you have enough so that you can wrap the entire ham up in foil. Drizzle about ⅓ of the sauce over the top of the ham and let it drip into the cut slices of ham. Tightly wrap the ham in the foil.
Air Fryer Ham Cook Time
Put the prepared ham in the preheated air fryer and cook it for 30 minutes at 300F.
Remove the ham from the air fryer and remove the foil from the ham.
Brush the ham with additional glaze, turn the air fryer heat up to 400F, and place the ham back into the air fryer for an additional 5+ more minutes or until the sauce starts to brown the ham.
Remove the ham from the air fryer, slice the ham, and drizzle the remaining glaze over the top of the ham if desired, or serve it on the side.
Air fryer models can differ in cooking time. We found that our air-fried ham was perfectly cooked at 35 total minutes, but our boneless ham was 3lbs. A larger ham will require a longer cook-time.
Recipe Tips
- Depending on the size of your air fryer model, you can probably fit up to a 4 lb boneless ham. A 3 lb ham was used in the recipe, if yours is 4 lb plan on cooking it for about 10 minutes longer.
- Our air fryer ham recipe is best when used with a boneless ham.
- Be sure to fully incorporate the glaze before adding it to your ham.
- Be careful when removing the foil from the ham, a little bit of the ham juices will have accumulated in the foil and you won't want to spill it.
Common Questions
We served our ham alongside roasted butternut squash and Brussel sprouts and instant pot scalloped potatoes.
If your ham is uncured it will keep for 3-4 days if uncured. An cured ham will keep for up to a week.
Got leftovers? Double wrap the leftover ham with foil and wrap in plastic wrap or place in a freezer bag. Freeze the ham for up to 3 months.
More Air Fryer Holiday Recipes
Looking for more air fryer holiday recipes?
- Air fryer turkey breast
- Air fryer baked potatoes
- Air fryer sweet potatoes
- Air fryer green beans and mushrooms
Come connect with us on Instagram! Be sure to tag us (wholelotta.yum) when you make a recipe. You can also find us on Facebook, and Pinterest.
Air Fryer Ham
A quick and easy air fryer ham that makes the most juicy perfect ham super FAST. Whether you have an uncut ham or a spiral sliced ham, using the air fryer for your holidays makes dinner simple.
Ingredients
- 3 lb boneless ham
- 4 T butter
- 1 T apple cider vinegar
- 1 T Dijon
- ¼ salt
- ¼ cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- 3 T sweetener (Brown sugar, coconut sugar, honey or erythritol brown sugar substitute)
- ¼+ cup orange juice
Instructions
- In a small saucepan over medium-low heat melt the butter. Add the apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, cinnamon, gloves, sweetener, and orange juice to the pan. Stir the sauce ingredients and cook for a few minutes until the sweetener is broken down and heated through. Set aside.
- If your ham has a netting, remove it. If your ham isn't pre-cut make small slice lines across the top of the ham to score it. You aren't completely cutting the ham into slices, just making some shallow slices across the top to allow the sauce to absorb into the ham heat.
- Lay the ham on a large piece of aluminum foil, make sure you have enough so that you can wrap the entire ham up in foil.
- Drizzle about ⅓ of the sauce over the top of the ham and let it drip into the cut slices of ham. Tightly wrap the ham in the foil
- Preheat the air fryer to 300F.
- Put the ham in the air fryer and cook for 30 minutes.
- Remove the ham from the foil and put it back in the air fryer. Brush with a little of the ham glaze, turn the air fryer heat up to 400F and cook for 5+ more minutes until the sauce starts to brown the ham.
- Remove the ham from the air fryer, slice the ham, and drizzle the remaining glaze over the top of the ham if desired, or serve it on the side.
- Enjoy! Serve the ham in air fryer recipe warm with dinner or cold as a leftover ham sandwich.
Notes
Depending on the size of your air fryer model, you can probably fit up to a 4 lb boneless ham. A 3 lb ham was used in the recipe, if yours is 4 lb plan on cooking it for about 10 minutes longer.
We used a boneless smoked ham but you can also use a pre-cut spiral sliced ham.
Be careful when removing the foil from the ham, a little bit of the ham juices will have accumulated in the foil and you won't want to spill it.
To make the ham sugar free, either skip the glaze completely or swap the brown sugar for coconut sugar, monk fruit, or erythritol.
A variation to using orange juice would be adding pineapple juice or apple cider.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 10 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 244Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 4gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 5gCholesterol 99mgSodium 1421mgCarbohydrates 5gFiber 0gSugar 4gProtein 30g
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