Baked Ham With Cracker Glaze

Christmas is a time for baked hams and smooth glazes. In Amish kitchens, however, hams are popular year-round. And a lot of the fruit glazes that you find on hams, like an orange glaze, just weren't practically historically. Amish cooks often had very little to work with, so they had to be very creative and inventive.

Today's recipe, Baked Ham With Cracker Glaze, is one such example. It's a very simple glaze and because of the crackers it's not really that "glazy", it's more like a cracker coating or topping. It's very good.

It's an old recipe and you could swap out the brown sugar for molasses if you like your sweet stronger. You also could use brown mustard instead of regular mustard. The mustard just tempers the sweetness a bit so it's almost like a sweet and sour topping.

Saltines have become a big part of Amish culinary culture because they are so accessible and provide good coating and crunch to hams, chicken, and bacon. Saltines are very shelf-stable and you'll find Amish bulk food stores carrying boxes of saltines. The crackers find their way into soups, breads, and as casserole toppings. Here's an interesting article about the history of saltines.

This recipe is an old one and is super easy. The only thing I couldn't figure out is how much to crush the crackers. My cracker pieces were crumbly, not a fine sand texture. If I had to do it over again I'd probably crush the crackers into a more powdery form.

This recipe works best with a slice and serve ham, I'm not sure it would do so well with sliced deli ham which would be too thin.

After you spoon the cracker glaze onto sliced ham, bake at 350 for no more than 30 minutes. You don't want the ham to get overdone.

You can see this looks more like a coating or topping, I probably should have made the crumbs more powdery, but the taste of the glaze was great regardless, I'm more just thinking the powdery crumbs would look more aesthetically pleasing.

🥩 Baked Ham With Cracker Glaze

• 1 baked ham
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 sleeve of saltines, crushed
• 4 tablespoons of prepared mustard

📋 Instructions

1. Crush saltines.
2. Mix brown sugar and saltine crumbs.
3. Add prepared mustard and stir.
4. Spoon onto sliced ham and bake for 30 minutes at 350.

🥩 More Amish Ham Recipes

Double Ham & Cheese Casserole

Easy Ham Casserole

Super Ham & Spaghetti Bake

🖨️ Full Recipe

Baked Ham With Cracker Glaze

An old Amish coating recipe for baked ham

No ratings yet

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, Amish

Ingredients

  

• 1 Baked Ham
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 sleeve of saltines, crushed
• 4 tablespoons prepared mustard

Instructions

 

• Crush saltines.
• Mix brown sugar and saltine crumbs.
• Add prepared mustard and stir.
• Spoon onto sliced ham and bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!