Crock Pot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham

 Ok, so what if you want to prepare a nice holiday dinner for your family, but you have limited cooking experience. What do you do? You make THIS recipe, that's what you do! This is so easy, anyone can do it! You just throw everything into the crock pot and turn it on. If you can open a can of pineapple, you can do this. And your family will be SO impressed by the delicious holiday ham that YOU made for them!
 I saw this in a video from Incredible Recipes that my friend Joshua posted on FB, and immediately decided that this would be the dinner I make for the next group hang at my place. Since this was gonna be a holiday hang anyway, I knew it would be perfect! And the fact that it's in a crock just makes it all the more easy. It frees up your oven for other things!
 So, thank you Incredible Recipes for living up to your name, and thank you Joshua for posting it! I think now this just might be my go-to ham recipe. It's pretty tough to beat!


1 ham, pre-cooked, spiral cut - bone-in or boneless, either will work
3 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 20 oz can pineapple tidbits or chunks - do not drain


 In a large crock pot, (over 6-quarts or larger) cover the bottom with 2 cups of the brown sugar. Place ham on top of the brown sugar, open the slices slightly with your hands. Pour the honey evenly over the ham. Add the pineapple around the sides (with the juice) and some on top. Top with the remaining 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, making sure it is evenly distributed over the entire top of the ham.
Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours.


Tips:

-The original recipe said to cook it for 4 1/2 -6 hours. I've made this recipe a few times, and I find that I don't like to cook it for that long. The ham is already cooked, so leaving it in the slow cooker for that long really over tenderizes the meat, at least for my liking. The longer you cook it, the more it will fall apart. I like ham to still maintain its integrity (no one likes mushy ham!) so I only cook it for 3 or 4 hours.

If you need to be away from your slow cooker for longer than 4 hours, then go ahead and cook it for longer, but don't add the pineapple until the last hour of cooking. It's an enzyme in the pineapple that breaks down the ham, making it too mushy. Science!

-Yes, yes, I know there's a huge amount of sweet ingredients going on here. But the ham is quite salty, so the sweet glaze goes nicely with it. To further balance all of that sugar, choose side dishes that are not sweet. For example, in this case, I would not serve applesauce, cranberry sauce, or pineapple stuffing as I might usually do with a regular ham. Instead, choose a savory vegetable such as green beans or broccoli and a starch such as mashed potatoes or mac and cheese.

-I used fresh pineapple instead of canned, just because I like it better. I didn't even measure. Just pulsed of bunch of fresh pineapple chunks in the food processor to chop 'em up a bit, then went ahead with the recipe as directed. If you like a lot of pineapple, add a lot!!

-I've never tried it, but I bet you could substitute maple syrup instead of honey, just for a little maple hit. I'm sure that would be heavenly!