Name: Sous Vide Spiral-Sliced Ham
Total time: 8 h 45 min
Ingredients: 1 7-pound spiral-sliced bone-in ham; ½ cup ruby port; ½ cup cherry preserves; 1 cup packed dark brown sugar; Pepper

Why This Recipe Works

Since this ham is already cooked, there are not too many places to go awry: All you have to do is reheat the ham, glaze it with a sweet or tangy sauce, and you're good to go. But in the interest of bringing ham into the 21st century (and freeing up some oven space for you next holiday meal), we're here to make it even better and more foolproof. Reheating the ham sous vide guarantees that the meat is evenly heated from edge to edge, eliminating cold spots and the need to obsessively maul your beautiful ham with an instant-read thermometer. Since cooking sous vide all but eliminates evaporation, the meat stays moist and flavorful. But the best part? If your ham comes from the store in convenient vacuum-sealed packaging, you can just drop the whole thing in your water bath and forget about it—no extra-extra-large bag needed. To finish this holiday centerpiece, we lacquer our ham with a couple of coats of cherry-port glaze in a hot oven, which gives the exterior a rich mahogany sheen.

Before You Begin

For easy carving, we prefer a shank-end spiral-sliced ham, but a butt-end ham will also work. Make sure that vacuum-sealed ham has no visible tears or breaks in the packaging to ensure that the ham reheats properly. Note that this recipe requires a 12-quart container. For more about sous vide cooking, refer to our sous vide guide.

Instructions

Using sous vide circulator, heat water to 140°F/60°C in 12-quart container.

Place ham into 2-gallon zipper-lock freezer bag and seal bag, pressing out as much air as possible. Gently lower bag into prepared water bath until ham is fully submerged, and then clip top corner of bag to side of water bath container, allowing remaining air bubbles to rise to top of bag. Reopen 1 corner of zipper, release remaining air bubbles, and reseal bag. Cover and cook for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours.

Cook port in small saucepan over medium heat until reduced to 2 tablespoons, about 5 minutes. Stir in cherry preserves, sugar, and 1 teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves and mixture is thick, syrupy, and reduced to 1 cup, 5 to 10 minutes; set aside.

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 475°F/246°C. Set wire rack in aluminum foil–lined rimmed baking sheet and spray with vegetable oil spray. Transfer ham, cut side down, to prepared rack and brush with half of glaze. Cook ham until glaze becomes sticky, 5 to 10 minutes. Brush ham with remaining glaze and cook until glaze becomes sticky and light mahogany, 5 to 10 minutes. Carve and serve.