Smoked Pulled Ham
This Pulled Ham is glazed with a sweet and tangy apricot pineapple sauce, and cooked low and slow until it’s tender enough to shred. Perfect for feeding a crowd, this juicy, flavor-packed ham delivers caramelized edges, warm spice, and melt-in-your-mouth texture that’s ideal for sandwiches, sliders, or hearty dinner plates. Both smoking and oven instructions.
Servings: 12 people
Ingredients
- 8-10 pound bone in whole ham *see note
- 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
- pineapple juice about ¼ cup or so for spritzing the ham as it smokes
- 1-2 cups fruit juice (for roasting) *see note
For the Rub:
- 4 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- ½ teaspoon all-spice
- ¼ teaspoon coarse ground pepper
For the Glaze:
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup apricot preserves
- ¼ cup pineapple juice *see note
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Instructions
- Preheat your smoker or pellet grill to 225℉. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.
- Place your ham, cut side down on the sheet. Trim any spots of the ham that have super thick fat on them. Score the ham on all sides shallowly in a diamond pattern. Rub the mustard all over the outside of the ham. This will help the dry rub stick to it.
- In a small bowl, whisk all the rub seasonings together and sprinkle all over the ham.
- Place the ham in the smoker and close the lid. Spritz the ham with pineapple juice about every 60-90 minutes to help it not dry out. Smoke the ham until the ham reaches 160-165℉. This will take about 5-6 hours, depending on the size of your ham.
- When the ham is almost to 160℉, make your glaze by whisking all the glaze ingredients in a small sauce pan. Heat over medium heat until it is warm. Remove 3 tablespoons of the glaze to a bowl and set aside for later.
- When the ham reaches 160-165℉, remove the ham from the smoker and transfer to a roasting pan. Then adjust the temperature of your grill or smoker to 350℉.
- Brush the glaze all over the ham and pour enough juice onto the bottom of a roasting pan that it reaches about ¼ - ½ inch deep. Tightly cover the whole pan with foil and bake (or smoke) until the ham reaches an internal temperature of 200℉. See notes. This will take about 2.5-3 more hours.
- Remove from the smoked or oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes. Remove the ham from the roasting pan and shred on a cutting board or serving plate. Drizzle the leftover glaze over the shredded ham, if desired.
Notes
- For the ham - This recipe will absolutely not work if you use a spiral cut ham. I used a butt portion of ham.
- About the fruit juice - You can use apple or orange juice instead, if desired. I really like the acidity of the pineapple juice. If you use apple juice, I suggest using 1 tablespoon less apple juice in the glaze and add 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar so it has some acidity. For the roasting juice you can use any you have on hand or even water if you don’t want to use juice.
- For spritzing - I highly suggest having a spray bottle to spritz the ham. Using a pastry brush will brush off the seasonings.
- After wrapping in foil - I don’t smoke the ham after it’s covered in foil because no more smoke is going to penetrate the ham through the foil so at that point your smoker is acting as an oven anyway and you may as well save your pellets. Instead of putting it back on the smoker, you can continue cooking in your oven.
- About internal temperature - Because hams are already fully cooked and just need to be rewarmed, in most recipes you only need to warm until the internal temperature is 140 F. If you want the ham to be able to shred, it must make it to 200 F or up to 210 F. If you want to test the ham to see if it's ready without a thermometer you can try to pull off a chunk of ham and see if it easily shreds. If it does then it’s done.
- Oven instructions - You can make the whole thing in the oven if desired. Bake in a roasting pan from the start with liquid on the bottom, wrapped in foil at 300 F. Remove from the oven at 200 F still and continue as directed with new oven temps and glaze.