Learn how to make a delicious Ham Gravy with the drippings from your baked ham. Perfect for Easter, Christmas, or other holiday dinners.
If you’re baking a ham, some juices will come out of it as it cooks. This, along with the brownings in the roasting pan, can be used to make ham gravy with delicious flavor. It only takes about ten minutes and is the perfect side dish for your ham dinner.
Scroll down to read more about how it all comes together or click here to jump straight down to the recipe.
Ingredients
There’s only four ingredients you need for this tasty gravy recipe. First is butter and flour to make a roux. Then comes the drippings for the ham base and heavy cream to bring everything together.
But don’t worry, if you didn’t just cook a whole ham, I have a substitution for the ham drippings below.
How To Get Good Ham Drippings
I find the best way to get tasty drippings is to add some unsalted stock to the roasting pan as the ham cooks. This way, any drippings that fall from the ham onto the roasting pan won’t burn there. Instead, they’ll fall into the stock where they’ll continue to concentrate as the ham cooks and the liquid evaporates. It’s especially useful to use stock to prevent burning if you have a sweet glaze on your ham.
Adding about 1 cup of stock is probably going to do the trick. It depends a bit on the size of your roasting pan. You want the stock to go at least 1/4 of an inch up the sides of the pan.
You can add the stock at the beginning and then top it up anytime you notice it getting really low, or just add it halfway through.
When you’re finished baking your ham, use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the pan, and scrape up anything from the bottom. You can add a drizzle more stock to the pan to help loosen things.
Tip: Freeze your extra ham drippings when you bake a ham, and then you’ll have them on hand when you next need a tasty sauce.
Ham Gravy Without Drippings
If you’re not baking a ham but still want to make ham gravy, don’t worry, it’s possible!
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add 3 ounces of chopped up ham. Cook, stirring occasionally, until well browned.
Add 2 and 1/2 cups of unsalted chicken or vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Put a colander over a medium-sized bowl. Pour the ham and liquid through the colander. Use the liquid as the drippings in the recipe below.
One or both of our baked ham recipes says to drain away the liquid from the roasting pan after done baking the ham. That can be changed to drain it away or use to immediately make ham gravy, or freeze the liquid to use it to make ham gravy another day.
Serving Homemade Ham Gravy
Ham gravy is delicious served over baked ham, of course, or you can save it to use on any kind of meat. Try having it with my ham steak recipe as well or on top of your mashed potatoes.
It’s also really tasty on buttermilk biscuits for breakfast or brunch. Tell me how you love to serve it in the comment section.
More Delicious Gravy Recipes
I have an entire collection of sauce and gravy recipes because they can really tie a meal together. Here’s a few to get you started.
- Creamy Bacon Gravy
- Sausage Gravy Recipe
- Homemade Pork Gravy
- Southern Tomato Gravy
- Best Chicken Gravy
- Vegan Gravy Recipe
Podcast Episode: Making Ham Gravy
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make this gravy, along with some other great tips, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
Print
Ham Gravy Recipe
- Prep Time: 0 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Sauce
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp. butter
- 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 2 cups ham drippings*
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
- Whisk in the flour and cook and stir until it’s starting to brown just a little bit, 1-2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and immediately start to slowly drizzle in the ham drippings, stirring the flour mixture continuously to prevent clumping.
- Return to medium heat and cook while stirring continuously until it comes up to a boil. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook until thick, 2-3 more minutes. Stir in the cream. Cook for another 30 seconds.
- Set a fine mesh sieve over a medium-sized bowl. Pour the gravy through the sieve to remove any lumps. Serve hot.
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Notes
*If you’re not baking a ham but want to make this gravy, there are instructions up above in the article for how to create the drippings. If you are baking a ham do this instead: Bake your ham as you normally would. Halfway through the baking time, add 2 cups of unsalted chicken stock (homemade or store-bought) to the pan and swish it around. Continue roasting your ham. Once it’s out of the oven, use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the roasting pan, adding more stock to it if it will help to loosen things. Pour all of the liquid into a measuring cup. If there’s less than 2 cups, make up the difference with more stock.
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