Brown Sugar Bourbon Slow Cooker Spiral Ham

If you are looking to make a fancy holiday dinner for a crowd, nothing is as easy as a cooking spiral ham in a slow cooker.  Glazed Spiral Ham is super simple to serve, too! Just plop it on a fancy tray with some gorgeous serving pieces and a little carafe of extra glaze on the side, and your guests will serve themselves without you having to carve some monster bird.

This Easter, I decided to spice things up ( literally ) and make a ham glaze with leftover pepper jelly, plus my favorite bourbon and some brown sugar.  It makes the ham just a tiny bit spicy, but only on the edges where the glaze really soaks in towards the bottom of the slow cooker.

Bonus: once you learn how to cook a spiral ham in a slow cooker, you will have a ton of space freed up in your oven to make all kinds of delicious side dishes, like my classic Baked Southern Macaroni and Cheese or delicious, souffle-like Corn Casserole.

Of course spiral ham isn’t just for Easter ( and neither are macaroni and cheese nor corn casserole! ).  I love making a spiral ham in the slow cooker for a Thanksgiving dinner without a turkey, or a classic Southern Christmas dinner.  It’s such an easy dinner for a crowd, and I love that the slow cooker doesn’t heat up the whole house like the oven does, which is an issue when you live in a sub-tropical climate like Charleston!  If you can convince your family members to bring the sides, you can go an entire holiday without turning on the oven.

WINNING.

Are you tired of seeing photos this delicious spiral ham cooked in the slow cooker yet? I love how the bourbon brown sugar pepper jelly glaze seeps into the ham, but doesn’t leave it super sticky.  Just a nice, light covering for a little bit of extra flavor.