Everything you need to know about the Costco Spiral Ham – including cooking instructions!
My family does not always make a turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter; a lot of the time my mom makes ham because it’s easier. We regularly have the Costco Kirkland Spiral Sliced Ham.
I honestly despised ham until I tried the Costco Kirkland Signature Spiral Sliced Ham. Other hams I’ve tried are fatty and greasy while being way too salty but not the spiral sliced ham from Costco.
This isn’t available all year round at Costco but is usually available around the holidays like Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas.
Location in Store
You can find the ham either in the refrigerated deli section by the sausages at Costco or the cooler section with the meat, it depends on your store. The item number is 13689.
Taste
The Costco Kirkland Signature Spiral Sliced Ham is hands down the best ham I’ve had. Sean (my husband) usually isn’t a fan of ham, but always goes back for seconds when we have this. The ham is lean without much fat and has a nice subtle smoked hickory flavor.
My favorite part about the Costco ham is that it comes with a sweet glaze that you brush on when it’s almost done. This makes the outside of the ham sweet and slightly crispy.
The ham is very flavorful. You can definitely taste the salt, which is common with ham, so get your glasses of water ready and maybe put a tad bit less salt in your side dishes. Compared to other ham I’ve had, the Spiral Sliced Ham from Costco actually tastes less salty, which is another reason why I like it.
Convenience
The best before date on the ham is about two months from the date we purchased the ham, so that means you can purchase it well before you plan to cook it and just keep it in the refrigerator until you cook it. Once you do cook it though, the packaging recommends consuming the ham within three to five days.
We use a food saver and freeze our leftovers. The ham comes in a mesh bag with an instruction booklet and glaze packet.
There’s a split pea soup recipe that comes with the instruction booklet. We’ve made the recipe before, and I highly recommend it! It’s delicious.
There are many things you can do with the leftover Costco ham, including making the split pea soup, ham a la king, using it for breakfast sandwiches and putting it in eggs (in an omelet or frittata). We get multiple additional meals from one ham.
The best part about this ham is that about half of it is already partly sliced so it’s very easy to serve nice even-sized pieces to your guests. It does take a little work to cut up the rest of the ham for leftovers but overall this is probably one of the easiest options for cooking a large amount of meat for multiple guests on a special occasion.
Cooking Instructions
I go over the cooking instructions and show myself preparing the ham in my video review, so you can watch that video on this page or click here to watch it on YouTube if you’d prefer to watch a video rather than reading through the cooking instructions.
To make the ham, you preheat your oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit, unwrap your ham and place it in a shallow baking dish with the flat side down and the round side up. Next, cover the ham tightly with aluminum foil. Then you cook the ham for 12-15 minutes per pound. Cooking the ham should take about two hours total, but it depends how big your ham is.
To make the glaze, you combine the glaze package with 45 mL of water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Once your ham has been in the oven for about two hours, remove your ham and pour the glaze over top and brush it in between the slices as well.
Once your Costco ham is glazed, turn your oven up to 425 degrees Farenheit and put your ham back in the oven uncovered for eight to 10 minutes, then let the ham sit out of the oven for about 10 minutes before serving.
Cost
The cost of the ham has gone up quite a bit. In 2021 when I originally wrote this the cost was $6.99 per kiligram. In fall 2023 it’s now $8.99 per kilogram.
This ham fed the four of us for Easter with a ton of leftovers for soup, quiche and sandwiches.
Nutrition
Calories
Nutritionally, this is high in fat and salt. A 100-gram serving is close to 200 calories, 10 grams of fat, eight grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of fibre, two grams of sugar and 16 grams of protein.
A 100-gram serving contains 950 mg of sodium, which is almost 40% percent of your daily recommended sodium intake. Generally, individuals do not eat tons and tons of ham day in and out and this is something usually served for a special occasion, so this probably isn’t the end of the world. Moderation is key, and make sure to drink lots of water!
Ingredients
The ingredients list has ingredients you’d expect to see in a ham. Pork, water, sugar, salt and preservatives! The glaze is mainly sugar, and you can tell that from the taste.
Scoring
Taste: 8.5/10
Cost: 8.5/10
Convenience: 6/10
Nutrition: 3/10
Overall
Must buy!
Overall, this ham from Costco tastes so much better than other hams I have tasted. It’s not fatty, the flavor is delicious and the cost is very reasonable. Nutritionally, definitely not the healthiest item you could serve. I would 100% buy this again and enjoy it for the holidays or other special occasions.
If you’ve tried the Costco Spiral Sliced Ham, what did you think?
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
I will never buy another Costco ham! Not only was it expensive, but it did not come with any cooking instructions. I looked up several, conflicting, instructions. One said to apply the glaze after reheating and another said to glaze before heating. Very disappointing to go through all of this hassle on Thanksgiving.
Hello, Mary. The cooking instructions are behind the label, just peel it off! You’re welcome 🙂
We tried the Costco ham for the first time rather than spending mega bucks on a honey baked ham. It wasn’t quite as good as the honey baked, but it was well worth the savings and taste was very good. I did,, however, find some pieces at little salty but I guess that’s to be expected.
I think we’ll purchase the Costco ham again for the next holiday and save some money instead of ordering the honey baked ham. It was worth the savings and the taste was great for the most part.
I think the slices are too thin. The ham tends to dry out while heating.
Thank you for the instructions. My Costco ham did not come with instructions (not just this time, but a few times). Your instructions are very helpful.
Instructions are on the back side of the sticky label attached to the red covering. Many times, folks throw it away not knowing it’s there.!!! Gobble gobble!!
Instructions have always been on the back of the label when I’ve purchased this ham.
We tried the ham for the first time – very delicious! The only problem was we did not receive the INSTRUCTION BOOKLET so after we had a delicious meal I went on the computer the next day to check for instructions discovering there was supposed to be an instruction booklet.
Did you look on the back of the label? I’ve always found the instructions there.
I’ve never cooked this ham before and tomorrow’s Easter. This is the best instructional site I found – thank you so much for the details on buying, cooking, cutting, nutrition, and leftovers!
An exceptionally good ham. I have bought many times. It never fails to please. More salt than I like but that is to be expected with ham. So I dont serve ham often but for those ham occasions like Easter, this one hits a home run.
1. These hams are fully smoked and fully cooked. You don’t have to cook it before eating!
2. The other benefit is the spiral cut. It’s uniform, not to thick not to thin. And much better done then my pathetic attempts, and I don’t cut myself either. Yes cutting myself is also a thing. I don’t like it, and I keep lots of various bandaids.
Just baked my ham… 7 pounds, and I baked it for 95 minutes, which is 13 1/2 minutes a pound, at 275. It wasn’t done. The part we at had to be nuked. I guess the good part is it was juicy and held up in the microwave. Good flavor, though, and hopefully, we don’t get food poisoning. 🙂
It’s a fully cooked ham in the package. It will be cold, but no food poisoning 👍.