Need an easy way to cook ham without using the oven? Look no further than this simple Instant Pot ham recipe with a sweet and tangy honey mustard pomegranate glaze. With just 5 ingredients, you can have a deliciously simple glazed ham that's perfect for special occasions or family dinners. And it's paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free!
Easy Instant Pot ham
This recipe skips the typical sugary-sweet brown sugar and pineapple glaze and substitutes tart pomegranate juice, a little honey, and stone ground mustard for a kick. Using a small boneless ham keeps this recipe quick and easy.
Cook this easy ham recipe in the Instant Pot for the holidays or for Sunday dinner. It's perfect when you don't want to turn on the oven---or your oven is full of turkey and side dishes.
Whether you're cooking a ham dinner for Easter, Christmas, or an extra main dish for Thanksgiving, this ham recipe pairs beautifully with all your favorite traditional holiday side dishes like:
- sweet potato casserole
- roasted Brussels sprouts
- creamy mashed cauliflower
- asparagus with Hollandaise sauce
- easy roasted carrots
- strawberry arugula salad
- and of course paleo cornbread or biscuits.
How long to cook ham in the Instant Pot
How long to cook a ham in your electric pressure cooker depends on a few things. Is the ham pre-cooked? Is it bone-in or boneless? Is it a spiral cut ham or unsliced? How big is the ham (how much does it weigh)?
Most hams you find in the grocery store come fully cooked so all you are really doing is using the Instant Pot to reheat the ham to serving temperature. You want to heat the ham to an internal temperature of 140 degrees---use a meat thermometer to check the temperature. Be sure that the label on the ham says fully cooked or read-to-eat for this method.
For this recipe, I used a small, uncut, fully cooked, boneless ham. This type of ham takes 2-3 minutes per pound on pressure cook high with a manual release. Once the pressure is released, check the internal temperature of the ham. If it's not up to temperature, cook it for another few minutes until it reaches the correct temperature.
RELATED: How to buy grass fed meat and the best organic meat delivery
How to glaze ham
The glaze for this ham recipe couldn't be simpler. It takes just 4 ingredients that you stir together and pour over the ham before cooking. The honey, mustard, and unsweetened pomegranate juice form the base of the glaze. I add just a splash of fish sauce to balance out the sweetness. This fish sauce is a great substitute for Worcestershire sauce that is often full of processed food chemicals.
Once the ham is done, remove it from the Instant Pot using the handles on the trivet rack. Turn the Instant Pot to low sautee and reduce the pan drippings to a glaze. Be sure to watch it and stir constantly so the glaze doesn't burn. That's it, just pour the glaze over the ham and it's ready to serve!
More paleo holiday recipes
Watch the videos below for more paleo holiday recipes to serve with your ham dinner!
Instant Pot Ham with Honey Mustard Pomegranate Glaze
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsweetened pomegranate juice
- ¼ cup organic stone ground mustard
- ¼ cup honey
- ½ teaspoon fish sauce
- 1 small fully cooked boneless ham (1.5-2lbs)
Instructions
- Whisk together pomegranate juice, mustard, honey and fish sauce in a large measuring cup.
- Place trivet rack in the cooking pot. Place the ham on the rack. Pour the pomegranate mixture over the ham.
- Set the program to Manual or Pressure Cook. Set the cooking time to 5 minutes and set the pressure to high. Press start.
- When cooking is done, wait for pressure to release (natural release). Remove the ham from the pot using the trivet handles to lift it out. Set ham aside to keep warm.
- Set Instant Pot to Saute and temperature to low. Simmer the juice left in the pan, stirring to be sure it doesn't burn, for about 3-5 minutes or until it thickens to a glaze. Pour glaze over ham and serve any remaining glaze on the side.
Diane
Do you have an estimated cook time for a crock pot? I don't have an instant pot. Thanks!
Lisa
Hi Diane, I haven't tested this recipe in the crockpot, but there's a slow cooker ham recipe in this holiday roundup.