Pressure cooker to pressurize and rest the ham: 25 minutesminutes
Total Time: 56 minutesminutes
Servings: 8servings
Author: Marvellina
Make this perfectly moist, easy, and no hassle boneless spiral sliced ham in Instant Pot and serve with a delicious aromatic Chinese char siu glaze (Chinese BBQ sauce). It is perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or any holiday meals and it's ready in no time.
Mix all the ingredients for the glaze in a bowl. Stir to mix and set aside
Prepare the ham:
Get 2 layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil, enough to cover and wrap the ham up entirely. Remove the ham from its packaging. Place the ham on the center of the foil and then shape the foil into bowl-like. Use your clean hands to gently separate the layers of sliced ham and then pour the glaze you prepare earlier, trying to get into each layer as much as you can.
Wrap the ham up with the foil, leaving no gap
Pressure cook in Instant pot:
The ham is already cooked when you bought it. All we are doing is to heat it up and to make sure it stays moist. Pour in 1 cup of water into the inner pot of the instant pot. Place the trivet in. Carefully and gently transfer the foil-wrapped ham and place on top of the trivet, careful not to let the trivet puncture the foil (it happened to me before) and the liquid will leak out and the ham won't be moist
Secure the lid and turn the steam release valve to seal. Press "pressure cooker" and make sure it's on "high pressure". The cooking time should be 2 minutes for each pound of ham. Mine is close to 4 lbs so it should be 8 minutes, but we need to account for the fact that it is wrapped in 2 layers of heavy-duty foil to keep the ham moist during cooking, which means it takes longer to heat it through, so add another 10 minutes on top of that. So, in my case, the total cooking time is 18 minutes. The pressure cooker may take about 10 minutes or less to comes into pressure
When 18 minutes of cooking time has elapsed, wait 15 minutes. The pressure valve would have collapsed by then. Unlock the lid and then carefully lift the ham out from the cooker. Then carefully unwrap the foil. Check the internal temperature to make sure it has come to between 135-140 F. If it's not, wrap it back up and pressure cook on high for another 3-5 minutes
There should be some cooking juice collected inside the foil. Very carefully transfer the ham out to a platter. Save the juice
Prepare the glaze:
Pour the liquid out from the inner pot of Instant Pot. Pour in the juice from cooking the ham back into the inner pot. Press saute and bring it to a boil. Have a taste. Is the sauce sweet enough for you or not. You can always adjust the taste by adding more brown sugar. Cook until the sauce has slightly reduced and thickened slightly, may take about 3-5 minutes. The glaze will thicken as the sugar caramelized. Don't reduce the sauce too much because they thicken further once it cools down. If it gets too thick, you can always add a bit of warm water to thin down the consistency a bit, especially if you plan to serve the extra glaze on the side
Glaze the ham:
Brush some of the glaze on top of the ham and in between slices. Reserve some of the glaze to serve on the side
Broil the ham (optional):
I didn't do this, but if you want a more caramelized glazed ham, place the ham on top of a baking sheet lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Broil the ham on high for 2-3 minutes or until you are happy with the caramelization
Serve:
Slice the ham, which shouldn't be hard, since it is already pre-sliced halfway and you just need to cut it all the way. Serve with the extra glaze on the side