Leftover Ham Recipes

Welcome to Leftover Ham Recipes - The site dedicated to what you can do with those delicious morsels of leftover cured pork.

On this site you will find numerous leftover ham recipes and ideas for what you can do with your leftover ham. And if you have a great idea or leftover ham recipe you would like to share then submit it to the site!

Leftover Ham Storage Tips

Leftover ham can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks - but you will want to make sure you have it wrapped in a ham cloth. If you don't have a ham cloth you can use a tea towel or kitchen towel. It's important you don't store your leftover ham in a plastic bag or similar as it won't be able to "breath" and will deteriorate much faster - you may notice a slimey texture developing on the skin of your ham if it's not stored correctly. For best results buy a ham cloth from your local butcher.

Leftover Ham can also be stored in the freezer for later use - periods of up to 6 months are allowed but we reccomend using frozen ham within 2 months as the flavour and texture of the ham will deteriorate over time.

Types of Leftover Ham Recipes 

Leftover ham can be used in all sorts of ways, Ham salads, Ham Casseroles, Ham Sandwhiches, Ham Loaf - just like meat loaf but made with Ham! You can fry large ham steaks with eggs and tomatoes for a very tasty breakfast. Pea and Ham soup is one of our very popular Leftover Ham Recipes - this is an especially good one when all you have left of your Christmas or Easter Ham is the bone with a bit of meat left on it. The bone will add a lot of extra flavour to your soup, and if cooked slowly for a decent length of time the remaining ham will fall off the bone. Ham is also delicious in pasta recipes, A cheese, mushroom, ham and pene pasta melt is delightful!

What is a Ham anyway? 

 A Ham is actually the leg of any animal that has been killed to eat - For example a leg of beef can also be called a ham. However we have come to think of ham as being a leg of pork, or meat from the leg of a pig. Additionally The leg of a pig that is fresh can still be called a ham. Hams do not have to be cured, salted or smoked to be called hams. However we have also come to associate these methods of preserving and flavouring the meat with our beloved and tradional ham. This website is dedicated to the pork variety of ham and that which has been cured in one of a number of ways.

History of the Ham 

Ham  has been around for literally thousands of years but we have not always called it Ham. Supposedly Ham originates from the old English word Hamm but other cultures such as the Chinese have been curing pork for some 1500 years or more. Apparently a Spanish explorer named Hernando de Soto (1469-1542) brought 13 pigs with him to America and those pigs bread into todays American pig population! Thankfully there we're a lot more human settlers so inbreeding of people was a lot less prevalent.
 
The curing of pork was very popular as it provided a source of delicious food that kept well through the long winter months. Native Indians had already developed salting and curing methods for venison to increase it's shelf life, or should I say tent life as back then it would have been stored in the corner of a teepee. These curing methods were adopted by early American settlers.
 
Because ham was often used sparingly to make it last through the winter it was often used in meals that essentially constitue what we would now call a Leftover Ham Recipe - a portion would be added to a soup or combined with bread and  vegetables to form a meal - the concept of glazing and roasting a whole ham would have been considered fairly decadent back then.

How a Ham is Made

The process of curing a leg of pork and turning it into a Ham is is usually performed in one of two ways - Dry Curing or Wet Curing. However sometimes a combination of the two methods is used and a wet cure will be used initially while a dry cure is applied at the end. Wet curing involves soaking or immersing the pork leg in brine or salted water while dry curing involves rubbing salt directly onto the pork - this process is then often followed by smoking the meat and then a period of ageing. Some hams can be aged for as long as 5 years before consumption - however these are very expensive and not found at your local supermarket or green grocer. Cheaper ham has often had the curing process sped up by injecting the wet brine straight into the pork - this is the type of ham we see in the local store at cheaper prices. When selecting a ham for the family table I recommend  going out of your way to find a boutique butcher who cures his Ham using more traditional methods - the mass produced hams are often not even smoked and the "smokey" flavor is just chemicals - or flavor enhancers - added to the injected brine solution. Steer clear of these types of hams if you can.

Thanks for stopping by 

Finally, we hope you have found this information useful and that you will enjoy creating the delicious meals in our recipes section -  If you have some Leftover Ham Recipes that are a favouorite in your family then by all means submit them to the collection. We love trying new ideas out. And hey! If you've  made one of the recipes on the site leave a comment and let us know how it tasted! We love feedback on anything to do with our favorite food! 

Thanks

The Ham Lovers