Slow Cooker Christmas Ham

Our Slow Cooker Christmas Ham is the perfect Christmas ham recipe. Slowly simmered in apple cider and spices and then finished in the oven with a honey and mustard glaze. Seriously, it's mouthwateringly good!

Honestly, our Christmas Ham recipe is just super easy to make. And the end result is the most succulent, tender, flavoursome ham.

The apple cider and spices infuse the ham with delicious flavours and by finishing the cooked ham in the oven with a honey and mustard glaze it adds a little sweetness and it's just perfect!

One of our favourite slow cooker meals to make!

Great for feeding a crowd as part of a Christmas buffet or for serving as a holiday ham dinner with roast potatoes and Christmas side dishes.

And the leftovers make tastiest sandwiches!

Slow Cooker Christmas Ham Recipe

Serves – 8-10

Prep Time – 20 mins

Cook Time – 6 ½ Hrs

Total Time – around 7 Hours  

Slow Cooker Christmas Ham Ingredients

You'll just need a handful of lovely ingredients to make our delicious Christmas Ham recipe

For the slow cooker ham joint

• 2kg ham joint (sometimes called gammon joints - I use the unsmoked ham joint so it picks up the flavours from the spices better)

• 1 large onion

• 500ml apple cider - I use Westons Vintage Cider for this recipe, it's got a lovely earthy taste.

• 500ml apple juice

• Boiling water - enough to top up to cover the ham joint in the slow cooker

• 1 cinnamon stick

• 4 all spice berries

• 2 bay leaves - I grow herbs in the garden so pick them fresh from the bay tree.

• 2 star anise

• 6 whole cloves

For the honey and mustard glaze

• 2 tablespoon brown sugar

• 2 tbs honey

• 3 teaspoon English mustard - you could use Dijon mustard if you prefer.

You might also just LOVE our Leftover Turkey Biryani recipe here

Equipment Needed To Make Slow Cooker Ham Recipe

• Chopping board

• Sharp knife

• Slow cooker

• Measuring jug

• Kettle

• Small bowl

• Tablespoon

• Teaspoon

• Roasting tin

• 2 sheets of tin foil to line the roasting tin

How To Make Slow Cooker Christmas Ham

You'll LOVE how easy this Christmas slow cooker recipe is!

Step One - How to cook gammon joint in slow cooker

• Preheat the slow cooker on the low setting.

• Peel and slice the onion into wedges and scatter them into the bottom of the slow cooker bowl.

• Rest the ham joint on top of the onion wedges

• Then pour over the apple cider, apple juice and add in the bay leaves, cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves and all spice berries.

• Pour over enough boiling water to just cover the slow cooker ham joint.

• How long to cook ham in slow cooker - I cook the slow cooker ham joint on low in the slow cooker for around 5 ½ hours.

Cooks Tip - Meat Thermometers

Slow cookers can vary so much, so it's always a worth using a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the centre of the meat is a least 75C once cooked. And continue cooking until that minumum temperature is reached.

Need a Christmas Day Dessert For Christmas Pudding Haters? Get all our delicious recipes and ideas here. 

Step Two - Glaze the ham and roast in the oven

• Once the ham is cooked through - remove the gammon joint from the slow cooker and rest for around 10 minutes on a plate.

• Preheat the oven to 200C / 400F / Gas Mark 6 - get our super handy oven temperature conversion chart here (with free printable to keep in the kitchen!)

• Line the roasting tin with at least 2 sheets of tin foil - make sure it comes right up the sides of the tin. The glaze will burn onto the roasting tin in the oven and it's a nightmare to clean! This way you can just take out the foil and throw it away, so no scrubbing!

Would it even be Christmas without a glass of Bucks Fizz? 

• Remove the strings from the fully cooked ham joint and take off the layer of skin and some of the fatty layer - it should peel away easily if you run a knife underneath it.

• Then put the joint into the tray and score the fat - you can just do this in lines, or make a diamond pattern. Don't go to loads of fuss - the emphasis here is on big flavour, cooked easily with no faff!

• Mix up the honey and mustard glaze - just tip honey, mustard and sugar into a bowl and mix together into a thick paste.

• Spread half onto the slow cooker Christmas ham and then bake in the oven for around 15 minutes.

• Remove the ham from the oven, add the rest of the honey and mustard glaze and return to the oven for a further 30 minutes to finish baking.

• Don't worry if the glaze is blackening, this just adds to a delicious caramelised flavour! Although you can if you prefer cover it loosely with tin foil.

Step Three- Serve the slow cooker Christmas ham

• Leave the ham to cool down a little before carving as this will make it easier to carve.

• Serve the ham, sliced on a platter alongside a pot of mustard, cranberry or apple sauce. Keep the garnish simple, just use rosemary sprigs.

Have you checked out our delicious Leftover Turkey Recipes?

Slow Cooker Christmas Ham Variations

• Change the spices - you could just cook with cinnamon and skip out the other spices if you prefer a plainer tasting ham joint

• Use maple syrup - swap the honey for maple syrup for a different flavor glaze.

• Skip the cider - feel free to just cook the slow cooker ham joint in just apple juice and miss out the cider if you prefer to cook without alcohol. You could also go tropical and cook the ham in pineapple juice.

• Go fancy with the glaze - if you prefer you can stud the ham with cloves after covering with the glaze for a more traditional look.

Get more Christmas Recipes here!

Slow Cooker Christmas Ham Recipe Tips!

Can I cook ham the day before Christmas?

Sure you can! You can simmer this crockpot ham recipe up on Christmas Eve if you like, then cool and store in the fridge, wrapped in foil until Christmas Day.

How far ahead can you cook Christmas ham?

You can make our Christmas Ham slow cooker recipe up to 3 days in advance and just cool and keep in the fridge wrapped tightly in foil to stop it drying out. Check here for more food storage times and tips. And be sure to east the ham before the use-by date.

How do I keep my ham from drying out?

The best way to stop the ham drying out is to make sure that whilst it's cooking you keep the liquid levels topped up so that the ham is always covered whilst in the slow cooker. If you're making the ham ahead of time, leave the joint whole and just carve it when you're ready to serve, this will help to stop the ham drying out.

Love your leftovers!

Leftover slow cooker ham joint can be used up in lots of ways - it's perfect for using as part of an easy dinner recipe. Try it as a sandwich filler, soup ingredient, as pizza topping, in Chinese style fried rice, use it in carbonara, toasted sandwiches, or as a baked potato filler. It's also nice used in place of bacon in a breakfast casserole.

Get all our leftover ham recipes here!

More Delicious Christmas Recipes To Make

• Christmas Sausage Rolls

• Christmas Tree Pizza

• Christmas Caprese Salad

• Pigs In Blankets Sandwich

• Prawn Cocktail Starter - the perfect, easy Christmas dinner starter!

Get more party food ideas here

Need Some Family Meal Ideas?

Check out our meal planning here – it’s filled with recipes, meal planning tips and pre-filled printable meal plans weekly or seasonally. We’ve got hundreds of the BEST family recipes and What to cook for dinner your whole family will LOVE!

You might also love our slow cooker beef joint recipe for an easy roast beef dinner

Get more delicious meal ideas and easy recipes here

Read full disclosure policy here 

Disclaimer - in a lot of our slow cooker recipes we use a crockpot where the inner pan in safe to use on the hob as well as in the crockpot. If you don’t have a hob safe slow cooker - then use a pan for any hob cooking then transfer to the slow cooker pan for slow cooking.