Our Favorite Sous Vide Brown Sugar, Balsamic Glazed Ham Recipe for Easter Sunday

I don’t know about you, but where I come from, my family loves a good cooked brown sugar and balsamic glazed ham for Easter, Christmas or even Thanksgiving!

Growing up, a tasty glazed ham has always been a family favorite tradition for our holiday meals. Last year I decided to shake things up a little bit by cooking our Easter ham sous vide style, instead of roasting it using a traditional cooking method. It is hard to mess up while cooking a ham, it is well known that they are one of the easiest meats to cook, and also one of the tastiest to eat. But, if you want to cook an even easier, and juicer ham then I highly recommend that you try cooking it sous vide style! It’s even better and easier this way because most hams are “pre cooked” so you just need to heat it up using a sous vide cooker.

“Sous Vide” is French for “under vacuum” so sous vide cooking is literally the art of vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a precise temperature in a bath of water. Sous vide cooking produces results that are impossible to achieve through any other cooking method, leaving meats juicer, and tastier then other traditional cooking methods.

To start, we removed the ham from its packaging, and seasoned it generously. We then vacuum sealed our Easter ham in an Avid Armor vacuum sealer bag using an Avid Armor A100 suction vacuum sealer. Due to the large size of the ham, we opted to use the A100 vacuum sealer because it is easy to vacuum seal large items, like an entire ham, using this sealer.

Once the ham is vacuum sealed, it is ready to be cooked sous vide! Here are the ingredients and kitchen tools that you will need to get started on this delicious brown sugar balsamic glazed Easter ham recipe.

Tools:

• Sous vide cooker
• Vacuum Sealer (we used an Avid Armor A100)
• Large Capacity Vacuum Sealer Bag or roll

Ingredients:

• 1 7-10lb bone-in half ham
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Fill a pot with water and place your Sous Vide cooker, preheating it to 140°F. Place the vacuum sealed ham in the water and leave it to cook for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours.
2. While the ham is cooking sous vide, heat 1 cup of brown sugar in a pan over medium-high heat until completely melted.
3. Continue to cook the sugar until it is a deep brown but not black, and immediately add the 1 cup of balsamic vinegar. Make sure to stand back as you add it to the pan.
4. Cook the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar mixture, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
5. Reduce to a bare simmer and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until mixture is thick and syrupy. Set the glaze mixture aside for later.
6. Move an oven rack to the lowest row of your oven. Then preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C) 30 minutes before serving ham.
7. Remove ham from the water bath, remove the vacuum bag, and place the ham, cut side down on a foil-lined baking sheet.
8. Wipe the Ham dry with paper towels and brush the glaze onto the Ham.
9. Place the ham into the oven and roast for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes have passed, pull out the oven rack, apply another coat of glaze, and repeat. Repeat this step 2 more times before removing the ham from the oven and letting it rest for 5 minutes.

The only thing left is to carve up your ham, serve it and enjoy it! This brown sugar glazed ham is perfect and so tasty, enjoy it with your family and loved ones for any holiday meal like Easter, Christmas or Thanksgiving!

To carve the brown sugar, balsamic glazed Easter ham, place the cut side of the ham down on a cutting board and make a single slice right next to the bone, to divide the ham into two pieces. Next, place the boneless side with the new cut side facing down on the cutting board and thinly slice the ham into pieces sized for serving. Repeat with the rest of the ham, cut it off of the bone one section at a time and then slice it into serving size portions.

Don't forget to vacuum seal any left over you have to seal in all those great flavors!