Taste of Home Old Fashioned Ham Balls
Sticky, sweet-and-sour, savoury ham meatballs in a brown sugar and mustard glaze. Use up your leftover ham, or make like us and skip the ham dinner going straight to these.
Ingredients
Ingredients for ham balls:
- 2 pounds ground pork
- 2 pounds leftover ham
- 4 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1 1/3 cups crushed shredded wheat cereal You can use a food processor or a zipper top bag and a mallet for the job!
Ingredients for the glaze:
- 3 1/2 cups brown sugar lightly packed
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar Don't use white vinegar here. It lacks oomph!
- 2 teaspoons ground mustard powder Or 1 tablespoon prepared British-style mustard, like Coleman's.
Instructions
- Use the coarse setting on your meat grinder to grind your ham. (If you do not have a meat grinder, use your food processor to pulse until it is finely chopped like hamburger or chop very finely with a large, sharp knife.)
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Evenly coat two 9"x13" baking dishes with non-stick cooking spray.
- Combine all the ham ball ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix together with your hands until all ingredients are evenly distributed.
- Roll the meat into 2-inch balls. (I use a medium sized disher to get evenly sized meatballs so they cook at the same rate.)
- Arrange the ham balls in the pans. Set aside.
- Add all the glaze ingredients to a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, whisking just until the sugar is fully melted.
- Reduce heat and simmer for 4 minutes. Do not cover the pan while simmering.
- Pour the glaze over the ham balls, dividing evenly between the two pans.
- Bake the ham balls, uncovered, for 70 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced to a syrupy consistency and the ham balls are browned.
Notes
These freeze well, so don't worry about the high volume of the recipe. Not that you'll have many left, that is... They're just a bit too tasty.
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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