Pineapple Baked Ham

This classic Pineapple Baked Ham is flavorful, juicy, and moist, and coated with sticky pineapple brown sugar honey glaze, and topped with pineapple rings and cherries that make it a fun and elegant centerpiece for your dinner table.

Oven baked ham with pineapples is a yummy and easy way to elevate a classic ham recipe for the Christmas or Thanksgiving holidays, or anytime you want to dress a ham up for dinner! We love it for Easter brunches too!

Baked Ham with Pineapple

We’ve baked a lot of ham around here, and Pineapple Baked Ham is my favorite way to bake a large piece of ham.

We start with a cooked ham and dress it up so that it is both flavorful, delicious and yes, juicy. No dry ham business here!

These pineapple rings help maintain moisture in the ham, and along with the sweet and sticky pineapple brown sugar and honey glaze, elevate the flavors in the baked ham.

The end product is a truly flavorful, moist and juicy pineapple baked ham.

You can eat the pineapple along with ham if you are like me and am obsessed with the ham and pineapple combo. If you don’t care for pineapples, toss them after cooking, but do not omit pineapples because they are an important part of this recipe!

If you have ham leftovers, make Ham and Cheese Croissant Casserole, Frittata, Ham and Bean Soup or Ham and Cheese Calzone to use up your leftover ham! Or be like me and intentionally put aside pineapple baked ham to make these yummies instead of hoping there’ll be some left. 😉

I really appreciate how pineapple baked ham is such a versatile dish that can be transformed into so many other dishes.

Whenever I make this pineapple glazed ham, not only do we eat it as a main course with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, we make sandwiches with it, add it to homemade pizzas, make omelettes with it, and then transform leftovers baked ham with pineapple into other yummy ham dishes.

cooking ham without drying it out

One of the most important thing to note when making this pineapple baked ham is we want to cook it in such a way that it doesn’t dry out, and is still juicy and moist.

Yes, flavor is important (and we will absolutely make sure this is crazy flavorful!), but if everything is right but ham is not juicy and moist, your pineapple ham just won’t taste as good.

So let’s make this ham right! I assure you, it’s not half as intimidating as it sounds. I’m going to walk you through step-by-step how to cook baked ham with pineapple well, and avoid that dryness in your ham.

So take a deep breath, then follow my instructions below, and be sure to check out the Tips and Tricks section for extra wisdom.

Types of Ham

There are so many types of hams out there. If you are trying to figure out what to buy for this baked ham with pineapple recipe, here is what I typically recommend.

In order to maintain the optimal moistness in ham, I like to get pre-cook ham that is 1) not spiral cut (they dry out too quickly when baked), and 2) bone-in.

If you end up with a spiral cut ham or boneless ham, be careful and do not overcook them because they do dry out faster.

Other ingredients

Here are the other ingredients you will need to cook this ham with pineapple recipe. You will find that this list is short and uncomplicated!

• Canned pineapple rings: I always get canned pineapples that is soaked in 100% juice, not syrup, so that I can add the juice to the glaze. One can should be sufficient.
• Maraschino cherries: I love the look of that pop of red from the cherries against the pineapple! I’ll be honest, I do this for the looks, so feel free to omit if you don’t like cherries or don’t really want to get an extra ingredient. Be sure to drain the liquid from the canned cherries before using.
• Honey: The base of our sticky glaze, making out pineapple baked ham gooey and sticky!
• Brown sugar: Bring on that sweetness! I love the added sweetness from brown sugar to add to our honey glaze.
• Salted butter: Adds a slight hint of salt to the glaze which helps offset all the sweetness.

How to Cook Ham with Pineapple

step 1: the ham

It’s time. Let’s make this delicious baked ham with brown sugar glaze.

Bring ham to a large roasting dish (remove roasting rack) with the non skin side faced down, them add about 1 cup of water on top of the foil.

The water on the pan will help keep your pineapple baked ham moist.

Some recipes will call for scoring the ham with a sharp knife into diamond shapes. That will help with flavor penetration but the downside is it could also dry out the ham. I typically don’t do it because I rather prevent it from drying out.

Cover roasting dish with aluminum foil. Use two pieces like I did if needed, and make sure to seal it fairly tightly.

The idea is to “steam” the ham when it is baking the oven so that it doesn’t dry out.

Bake it low and slow at 325℉ for 1 hour.

step 2: the Brown Sugar Pineapple Glaze

While the ham is in the oven, prepare the brown sugar glaze made with pineapple juice, brown sugar and honey on the stovetop.

Think of this brown sugar pineapple glaze as the flavor enhancer for your baked ham with pineapples. It brings an additional dimension of sweet and savory flavors to your already yummy ham.

step 3: The masterpiece

After ham is baked in the oven for 1 hour, remove it from oven.

Starting right here is when the instructions get a bit less ‘one size fits all’.

There are a lot of variables such as how long to bake the ham, whether to cover or not, how often to check it etc.

It depends on the size of the ham, how well your oven heats up (not all ovens heat to the right temperature evenly), whether ham is bone in or not, how big is the bone in the ham, the shape of the ham, how cold was the ham when you brought it into the oven…I could go on and on.

Lots of variables! To give a one size fits all instruction for any baked ham (or large baked piece of meat) is somewhat impossible. And the results will be all over the place.

So here is what I will do. I’ll give you as many instructions as I can, but ask that you take certain things into consideration, and be open to tweaking accordingly.

Once you get ham out of the oven, use a meat thermometer and check on the temperature of the ham. Then you do one of two things:

Scenario 1 – Ham is still far from being done

If the internal temperature of the ham (check the thickest part of your baked ham) is below 125℉, brush brown sugar pineapple glaze on the ham (basting it), including the cut side, secure pineapple and cherries with toothpicks, and cover ham with aluminum foil and bake it at 375℉.

Every 20 minutes, remove pineapple baked ham from oven, unwrap the aluminum foil, check on the temperature of the ham, brush more glaze on it, wrap it again with aluminum foil, and bring it back to the oven to bake.

Repeat this until the thickest part of the ham reaches 140℉. And then pineapple baked ham is ready to serve.

You may need to do the 20-minute interval twice, or three times, or even four or five times. But it is important to keep checking and not wait too long to check on your pineapple baked ham to avoid overcooking it.

Scenario 2 – Ham is close to being done

If the thickest part of the pineapple glazed honey baked ham is above 125℉ when you pull it out from the oven for the first time, brush on the rest of the glaze, including the cut side, add pineapples and cherries, cover and bake at 375℉ and check it in 15 minute intervals until the internal temperature of the ham reaches 140℉.

For both scenarios, if the temperature of baked ham with pineapples is getting very close to the 140℉ mark but isn’t quite there yet, you may want to check on the ham more frequently to avoid overcooking it.

Also, feel free to bake pineapple glazed ham uncovered during the last 10 minutes if needed. Baking uncovered does speed up the process, but it will also dry out the ham a lot faster so avoid doing so for longer than 15 minutes. And you should only bake it uncovered at the very end.

As a point of reference, the last time I made this, I had a 9 pound ham bone-in ham and I cooked the ham for the first hour under 325℉, then did two rounds of the 20-minute intervals.

Note: this pineapple baked ham recipe is best used for ham that is above 7 pounds and not suitable for small hams!

Serving and Slicing the ham

After baked ham with pineapples is done, let ham rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting into it.

The pineapple slices and cherries makes the ham look vibrant and gorgeous so you don’t really need to do much with it.

Sometimes I like to throw in a few extra pineapple rings and some fresh herbs like parsley to brighten up the platter if you really want to deck it out even more!

When ready to slice it, transfer ham to a cutting board and slice with a sharp knife. Placed sliced ham onto a serving platter, drizzle with juices, and cover with aluminum foil so that ham stays warm until ready to serve.

Just what I need today and everyday: juicy, perfectly baked ham with pineapples with a sticky crust, infused with brown sugar and honey flavors.

A little sweet, a little savory…a whole lot of yum.

Be still my heart. 🥰

Storage and Reheating

Storage: Store in an airtight container in the refridgerator and consume within 5-6 days. If you need to store it for longer, freeze leftovers. It can be stored in the freezer for up to 4 months.

Reheating: Ham can be reheated in the microwave but I like to drizzle a few drops of water before reheating to prevent it from drying out.

ENJOYED THIS RECIPE? Tell us what you think by leaving a rating and review below! 🤍

side dishes to go with ham

As for sides that goes well with baked ham with pineapples, here are some of my favorites!

• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Roasted Whole Carrots
• Lemon Garlic Roasted Broccoli
• Smoked Gouda Mac and Cheese
• Easy Garlic Parmesan Asparagus
• Honey Garlic Roasted Carrots
• Honey Butter Rolls
• Cheesy Garlic Rolls
• Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecans