What to Serve With Christmas Ham

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

Serve Christmas ham with three things: a sharp mustard, something sweet like cranberry sauce, and something sour like a relish or chutney. Add crusty bread, a sharp cheese and a salad with some acid in it and the table is finished. Three 110g jars at $6.95 each will cover a dozen people.

Sharp, sweet and sour: what the jars are actually for

A glazed ham is salt, fat and sugar arriving in the same mouthful. On its own it flattens out by the third slice. Everything you set beside it is doing one of three jobs, and a ham table that works has all three covered.

Sharp is mustard. Acid and heat cut the fat and reset your palate between slices, which is why mustard has sat beside cured pork for a few hundred years. Sweet is cranberry sauce or a fruit chutney, picking up where the glaze left off but bringing a tartness the glaze does not have. Sour and savoury is a relish or a savoury marmalade: the jar for people who do not eat mustard, and the one that does the most work on the days after.

If you are still working out how to cook the thing, our Christmas ham glaze guide covers the sugar and mustard side of the job. This page starts once it is carved, and most of what is on it comes from our gourmet condiments range.

The jars we put out

We do not sell the ham. Your butcher will do that better than a parcel ever could, and we do not ship fresh meat. What we sell is everything that goes beside it, much of it in 110g jars small enough to sit on a board without being decanted. The Regimental Condiment Company minis below are $6.95 each, the cheapest interesting thing you can add to a Christmas table.

Lancaster Seeded Mustard, $6.95 for 110g. Wholegrain, coarse, tangy rather than hot. This is the jar to put out if you are only putting out one, because nobody objects to it. A teaspoon stirred through mayonnaise also becomes the dressing for every ham sandwich between now and New Year.

Spitfire Hot English Mustard, $6.95 for 110g. Proper hot English, the kind that goes up the nose. A thin scrape per slice, not a spoonful. Whisk a quarter teaspoon into the dressing for a potato salad and the whole bowl wakes up.

Hurricane Honey Mustard, $6.95 for 110g. Sweet, mild, and the one children will actually eat. Its label points it at cold meats and sandwiches, and it is the mustard to brush over slices you are warming through.

Cranberry Sauce, $6.95 for 110g. The product description on this one reads, in full, "Enjoy with your favourite Ham off the Bone", which saves us arguing for it. Sweet, tart, thick enough to hold its shape rather than run under the ham. What is left goes into gravy, or onto a cheese board beside a sharp cheddar. It sits in our festive entertaining range for obvious reasons.

The King's Gunners Tomato and Red Pepper Relish, $6.95 for 110g. Rounder and sweeter than a plain tomato relish, with the red pepper giving it body. The maker sends it out for hot and cold meats and curry. Beside a ham it is the answer to what relish goes with a glazed ham, and on day two it is the best thing you can put inside a toasted sandwich.

Bill's Beetroot Marmalade, $16.95 for 380g. Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen call this their best seller: beetroot and ginger cooked down into something savoury rather than jammy. Their own note recommends it with roast pork and game, and that earthiness sits well against a glaze. The larger jar earns its place if you are feeding a crowd.

Woodcutters Chilli Chutney, $12.95 for 330g. From the Daylesford Condiment Company, and the jar to open if someone finds the rest of the spread too polite. The label suggests barbecue, and stirring it through cream cheese for a quick dip, a genuinely good use for what is still in the fridge in January.

How many jars, and how to set them out

Three is the working answer for up to about a dozen people: one mustard, cranberry sauce, and one relish or chutney. Go to five if the ham is living on a buffet all afternoon, or if your table splits between those who want heat and those who do not.

Leave them in their jars rather than decanting into bowls. The 110g minis are the right size for exactly this: nothing to wash, and the label tells people what they are reaching for. On a long table, put a second mustard at the far end rather than making anyone reach across the ham, and give every jar its own spoon.

Take the lot out of the fridge half an hour before you eat, ham included. Cold mustard tastes of almost nothing, and cold ham fat is unpleasant in a way the bench fixes for free.

What else belongs on the table

Bread, and more of it than you think, because a ham lunch becomes ham sandwiches the moment someone spots the loaf. A sharp cheddar or a washed rind, crackers, something pickled. A salad with real acid in it rather than a creamy one, since the dressing is doing the same job as the mustard. Cold prawns if the budget stretches.

The rest of the meal, from starters to what to do about dessert in the heat, is covered in our guide to Christmas food in Australia.

Then plan for leftovers. Half the point of the jars is the four days afterwards, and our guide to leftover Christmas ham covers where the rest of it goes.

Common questions

What mustard goes best with Christmas ham?

A wholegrain or seeded mustard is the safest single choice. It has enough acidity to cut the fat without shouting over the glaze, and almost nobody dislikes it. Add hot English as a second jar if your table likes heat, and a honey mustard if there are children eating. One of each covers everyone.

Do you serve cranberry sauce with ham or turkey?

Both. Cranberry sauce is traditionally paired with turkey, but it works at least as well on ham, where the tartness cuts through the salt and the sweetness of the glaze at once. In Australia, where a cold glazed ham is on far more Christmas tables than a roast turkey, cranberry sauce beside the ham is the normal arrangement, not the odd one.

How many condiments do I need for a ham?

Three covers most tables of up to a dozen people: one mustard, cranberry sauce, and one relish or chutney. Five is better if the ham is on a buffet all afternoon, or if you are feeding a mix of people who do and do not want heat. Small jars beat big ones here: a half empty large jar looks tired by the second day.

Most of what is above sits in our gourmet condiments range: mustards, relishes, chutneys and the 110g minis, between $6.95 and $16.95. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our packing room in Corio, Victoria, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. We do not offer same-day delivery, so order the jars while you are still thinking about the ham.