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A honey baked ham is a special thing. The lengthy process of curing, smoking, and glazing with that sweet honey glaze builds flavor to dizzying heights of pure succulence.
An excellent centerpiece for a holiday gathering, as well as the versatile source of post-holiday leftover derivatives like soup and sandwiches, ham is a gift that keeps on giving. Whether you're looking for a whole salty country bone-in ham, a mild sweet petite boneless, or a complete ham dinner, there's a ham delivery service that will suit your needs. Read on as we showcase our top picks for the best honey baked ham delivery services.
Best Honey Baked Ham Delivery Services
- Best Overall: Father's Country Hams
- Best Variety: Goldbelly
- Best Complete Meal: The Honey Baked Ham Co.
- Best Cured: Broadbent's
- Best Natural and Sustainable: Berkwood Farms
- Best Bone-In: Nueske's
- Best Sweet Hams: Edwards Virginia Smokehouse
Best Overall : Father's Country Hams
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Father's Country Hams
Why We Chose It: Father's uses honey from its own bees in its glaze, a symbol of the company's commitment to keeping it real.
Traditional curing process, unchanged since 1840
Glazed with honey made by bees right on the farm
More balanced, dry cured flavor
Slightly higher average price
Father's Country Hams come from a Kentucky family farm in the ham business since 1840. Back when curing and smoking, significant cuts of meat like ham were necessary for preservation. The farm couldn't have been around for this long if it didn't know what it was doing.
Many traditional dry-cured country hams can be excessively salty, but Father's uses a higher quantity of sugar in its curing mixture for a more balanced flavor. Father's hams are also aged for at least eight months, resulting in a deep, rich, traditional taste. Moreover, it produces honey for its glaze.
Father's traditional curing process allows its hams to be shipped unrefrigerated, so there's no need to thaw before enjoying. You can consume immediately upon arrival or refrigerate for storage.
Father's honey glazed ham is a half ham that comes bone-in and spiral sliced. It sells for about $68 plus shipping and is available nationwide. If you want to purchase a whole or uncooked ham, you can buy Father's honey separately and apply a glaze yourself.
Best Variety : Goldbelly
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Goldbelly
SPRUCE15 for $15 off of minimum $50 spend, first time customers only, excludes shipping, standard T&C applies.
Why We Chose It: Goldbelly has lots of options from various producers, with free shipping on most orders.
Free shipping
Offers hams you can't get anywhere else
Not always clear if hams are whole or half, bone-in, or boneless
With a curated selection of beloved artisan foods from all over the country, Goldbelly has built one of the most impressive modern gourmet food marketplaces in the world. Many outstanding small producers that couldn't otherwise ship their products nationwide use Goldbelly to expand the reach of their regional delicacies.
Some of the finest jewels of the honey baked ham world are available through Goldbelly. Check out the New Jersey oak-smoked honey glazed ham from Water Dog Smoke House, the Cajun honey glazed ham from Cajun Ed's Specialty Meats of Oklahoma, and the honey glazed spiral sliced ham from Mississippi's Logan Farms, to name a few. Goldbelly carries more than a dozen excellent hams, though admittedly, not all are honey glazed.
All hams from Goldbelly are fully cooked and ship frozen packed with dry ice. The prices on these hams are slightly higher than average, but the vast majority include free shipping, so the cost evens out. Goldbelly ships to all 50 states, but delivery to Alaska and Hawaii will cost you extra.
Best Complete Meal : The Honey Baked Ham Co.
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The Honey Baked Ham Co.
Why We Chose It: The Honey Baked Ham Company offers delicious sides, making them a one-stop-shop for your gathering.
Complete meal packages
Tons of positive reviews
Published shipping rates, so there are no surprises at checkout
All products ship frozen
Although not the longest-standing, The Honey Baked Ham Company is probably the best-known glazed ham company in the United States, owing to the power of innovation and marketing. During the 1930s, founder Harry J. Hoenselaar built and patented the world's first spiral slicing machine, allowing him to sell pre-sliced whole hams still on the bone. Customers loved it, and spiral slicing became the new standard for serving bone-in ham during the holidays.
Honey Baked is also known for its crunchy glaze, made with a secret recipe of honey, brown sugar, and spices. The glaze is slathered on thick after spiral slicing for lots of sweet counterpoint to the salty cured ham.
If you're shopping for a whole meal, Honey Baked Ham Company is the service for you. In addition to its a la carte hams, Honey Baked sells more than half a dozen complete dinners and brunches, with sides like mac and cheese, green bean casserole, sweet potato soufflé, coffee cake, and pancake mix.
A Honey Baked Ham alone costs between roughly $80 and $105, depending on the size. Complete meals sell for around $105 to $135. Shipping costs extra, with rates tied to how much you're spending. See the site's shipping section for a complete list of prices and delivery destinations.
Best Cured : Broadbent's
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Broadbent's
Why We Chose It: A 19-time winner of the Grand Champion Country Ham at the Kentucky State Fair, Broadbent's is for connoisseurs of that traditional dry-cured southern flavor.
Authentic country ham curing process
Award-winning flavor
Might be too intense for some
If you love the intense salty flavor of traditional dry-cured country ham, then Broadbent's is a must-try. Like Father's, Broadbent's hails from Kentucky, where they take old-fashioned ham very seriously. Founded in 1909, Broadbent has been curing and smoking award-winning hams for over 100 years. Fun fact: At a charity auction in 2018, a Broadbent's ham sold for $2.8 million.
Broadbent's hams are hickory smoked and aged for 6 to 18 months to develop a flavor depth. Befitting a serious artisan, Broadbent's publishes lots of info about their pork on its website. There's information about animal welfare, diet, and the company's breeds for its hams, some of which come from heirloom bloodlines.
Cooked hams come in various sizes and both boneless and bone-in configurations. A tub of Broadbent's signature honey glaze is included for you to apply before heating and serving.
Prices range from roughly $50 to around $185, depending on the size of your ham. Shipping costs extra, with rates tied to your purchase amount. Broadbent's ships via UPS to the continental U.S.
Best Natural and Sustainable : Berkwood Farms
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Berkwood Farms
Why We Chose It: This ham contains no added nitrates or nitrites and comes from purebred heirloom Berkshire hogs.
Made from 100% responsibly raised Berkshire pork
No added nitrates or nitrites
No boneless option
Weight range is too vague
For those hoping to steer clear of high levels of the added nitrates and nitrites producers often rely on in their curing process, Berkwood Farms offers uncured hams. These hams still contain nitrates, but only from a naturally occurring source, namely celery salt.
Berkwood's more natural curing process is just one facet of its commitment to good health and sustainability. Berkwood isn't only one farm but a networked coalition of family farms located throughout the American Midwest, all dedicated to humane standards of animal husbandry and ecologically sustainable agriculture.
Berkwood farmers exclusively raise Berkshire pigs, an heirloom breed long renowned for its flavor, color, and marbling. The pigs are fed a vegetarian diet, are not raised in confinement, and never receive any hormones or antibiotics.
Berkwood sells one honey glazed half ham in two different formats: uncut and spiral sliced. Hams weigh between 8 and 11 pounds, come pre-glazed, and sell for about $90, plus shipping. Shipping is free on orders over $250—Berkwood ships to all 50 states via FedEx and UPS.
Best Bone-In : Nueske's
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Nueske's
Why We Chose It: A slew of five-star reviews and accolades mark Nueske's spiral sliced bone-in ham as one of the best in America.
Helpful carving instructions
Multiple size options
Slightly higher shipping rates
For some, the best part of the ham isn't the meat; it's the bone. That's because long after the meat is all gone, the ham bone can provide the base for a wide array of satisfying dishes redolent with that unique smokey, salty, umami flavor, from beans to congee, split pea soup to collard greens, or just a simple, satisfying consommé.
This reviewer of Nueske's bone-in honey glazed ham sums it up perfectly: "My family raved about the ham. Oh, yummy! Six months later, I did a pot of beans with the frozen bone, and they all said those were the best beans they ever tasted. Wish I could buy just the bone sometimes."
Besides the numerous five-star reviews from delighted customers, Nueske's bone-in honey glazed ham has garnered accolades from Ladies' Home Journal, the American Tasting Institute, and the venerable Wisconsin State Fair.
Nueske's offers whole spiral sliced bone-in honey glazed hams. The half ham weighs around 7 pounds and sells for about $70. The whole ham weighs in at roughly 12 pounds and goes for a little over $100. Shipping costs extra. See the shipping link in the site's footer for a table of shipping prices—Nueske's ships to all 50 states.
Best Sweet Hams : Edwards Virginia Smokehouse
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Edwards Virginia Smokehouse
Why We Chose It: For those who find some ham too salty, Edwards offers milder hams with a perfect balance of sweet and savory.
Sliced, unsliced, bone-in, and boneless are all available
Free shipping
Slightly higher-than-average price
If your palate is especially sensitive to salt, or if you're trying to reduce your overall sodium intake, ham can present a challenge. Luckily, Edwards Virginia Smokehouse has a whole category of sweet hams to satisfy your taste.
Edwards has a unique origin story. It all started in 1926 with ham sandwiches and a ferry boat. S. Wallace Edwards Sr. was the boat's captain, but he had a side hustle selling sandwiches to his hungry passengers. The travelers' enthusiastic response to his home-cured ham inspired him to leave the transportation business and focus his efforts entirely on the smokehouse.
Edwards' sweet hams still utilize salt and nitrates in the curing process, but in a gentler way to produce a milder, sweeter flavor than most salt-cured country hams. After curing, the hams are smoked with hickory to develop a deeper flavor.
Edwards offers several forms of sweet hams, with sliced, unsliced, boneless, and bone-in options. Look out for the choices that come with Edwards's exclusive honey glaze made with honey, brown sugar, and oil of orange. The glaze is packaged separately for you to apply before heating and serving. Prices range from about $74 for the petite boneless sweet ham up to about $160 for a whole bone-in spiral-sliced ham. Prices include free standard shipping throughout the lower 48 states.
Final Verdict
There's no shortage of competition among producers of honey baked ham, and that's good news for ham lovers when it comes to broad considerations like prices and shipping options. Questions of taste, however, are more subtle and individual. You probably know how much you're willing to spend, but do you know what kind of smoke flavor you prefer, or what heirloom pork tastes like? To find out, you've got to taste for yourself. We named Father's Best Overall because we think the best way to investigate your taste is to start with the most traditional, authentic ham.
Compare the Best Honey Baked Ham Delivery Services
Company | Avg. Price Per Pound | Smoke Flavor |
---|---|---|
Father's Best Overall | $13.60 | Hickory |
Goldbelly Best Variety | $13 plus | Various |
The Honey Baked Ham Co. Best Complete Meal | $13 | Mixed Hardwood |
Broadbent's Best Cured | $9 | Hickory |
Berkwood Farms Best Natural and Sustainable | $9 | Applewood |
Nueske's Best Bone-In | $9 | Applewood |
Edward's Virginia Smokehouse Best Sweet Hams | $11 | Hickory |
FAQs
What Is a Honey Baked Ham?
Ham comes from the leg of the pig. The meat is usually cured, smoked, and sometimes aged. The honey arrives in the final step of glazing, in which honey and various other ingredients are slathered on the surface of the ham and broiled to a crisp, caramelized finish.
Are Honey Baked Hams Cured?
Generally speaking, yes, but uncured hams are also available.
How Much Do Honey Baked Hams Cost?
A honey baked ham can range from around $50 up to $200, depending on the size and other factors such as whether it's bone-in or boneless, farming practices, and the particular breed of pig.
How We Chose the Best Honey Baked Ham Delivery Services
We looked at dozens of honey-baked ham producers and evaluated them from the standpoint of metrics such as reputation, longevity, customer reviews, website functionality, and product variety. Animal husbandry practices, the curing process, and sustainability were also taken into consideration.
For example, Father's Country Hams has been in business for over 150 years and has been named among the best ham producers by Bon Appetit and Southern Living, while The Honey Baked Ham Company and Nueske's are extremely popular with customers. Broadbent's boasts numerous awards, and Berkwood Farms was recognized for its heirloom Berkshire pork. Finally, Goldbelly and Edwards Virginia Smokehouse bring unique products that round out this list.
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