Why Uncovering Your Ham While Baking Is A Huge Mistake

Baked ham is one of the most iconic holiday dishes, but really, you need no special occasion to roast a ham. Any leftovers can be used for soups, sandwiches, or an irresistible ham salad. However, you can't just chuck a ham in the oven and call it a day. While there are many ham cooking tips people overlook, one of the most egregious is failing to cover it while it's cooking.

Although it doesn't sound like that big of a deal, covering it is important for keeping it moist and tender. You know that bone-dry ham your mother-in-law serves during the holidays? Yeah, that's the result of not covering it. This is because the heat of the oven draws out and evaporates the moisture in the ham as it cooks. With nothing to trap it, like aluminum foil, all that succulent goodness is lost.

This rule applies to both uncooked and precooked hams, but uncooked especially needs to be covered as they will need to cook longer, providing more time for them to dry out. To prevent this, you should always cover your ham with a layer of aluminum foil or place it in a baking bag for at least half of its allotted cooking time. For a bit of extra moisture, you can also add a bit of stock, apple juice, wine, or water to the bottom of your roasting pan. 

Although covering a ham is essential for preserving moisture, there is one point during the cooking process where it should be uncovered: after glazing. Don't do this too early, though, or you'll risk burning the glaze and drying out your ham. A glaze should be applied within the last hour to 30 minutes of cooking. During this final leg of cooking, the glaze will be able to caramelize over the meat and the outer layer of the ham will get slightly crispy.

This is also the time when you'll want to crank up the heat just a bit. While the key to a great ham is cooking it low and slow, after glazing, high heat is your friend. It's recommended to cook ham, fresh or pre-cooked, at 325 degrees Fahrenheit, though some methods call for cooking it at 250 degrees, as the lower heat is meant to retain more moisture. In either case, once the glaze is applied, you can turn up the heat to between 375 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on the glaze or the glazed ham recipe you're using, you can also apply more sauce in 15-minute intervals, rotating your ham as you go so it caramelizes evenly. So long as you remember to keep things covered until glazing, you'll have a juicy ham packed with flavor and absolutely no dry spots in sight.