Ham Salad (Recipes SHOULD be easy!)

Good morning! ~thinks a minute~ Okay, so it was morning when I started working on this post. However, by the time I got back from the grocery store, made the ham salad, and heard my stomach growl as I took photos of the finished product, I ended up sitting down to eat my model (it was just too pretty not to eat right then and there) and lo and behold, by the time this puppy is posted it will likely be early afternoon – if I’m lucky. Good thing is, by then it will be time for a snack of …more ham salad ~grins~. It’s a tough job.

I’ve had more requests for a ham salad tutorial than I can count since starting Southern Plate so I’m hoping y’all will enjoy this one. This is one of those old timey recipes that used up leftovers and scraps of ham to make something pretty, filling, and delicious. There are as many ways to do ham salad as the day is long so if you don’t have your own ham salad recipe, feel free to take this one and customize it to your tastes or make it up with what you have on hand. Don’t have spicy brown mustard? Use a bit of regular and add a little more pepper if you like. Prefer a different mayonnaise than what I used? Go for it. Tweak it, mix it up, taste it, and make it your own.

Fact is, I can think of very few recipes as simple as this one. I’ve been getting a lot of comments lately from really nice folks thanking me for having such simple recipes and I want to thank You for being kind enough to read them and taking the time to comment! I think cooking really should be simple, though, and I’ve found that its the simple recipes that tend to taste the best.

Of course, that could be due to the fact that I won’t actually go to the trouble of making a complicated recipe…

Either way you look at it, here is another simple but good one for ya. Hope you get to try it soon!

You’ll need: Spicy brown mustard, sweet pickle relish, mayo*, boiled eggs, pepper to taste, and chopped ham**.

*I am not a big mayo person. I often try to get Duke’s because so many of y’all have told me how much you love it but I mostly just use it to mix up things with so sometimes grab whatever I can find first. If you have a favorite mayo, be sure to use that in this recipe.

**A lot of folks chop up their ham for ham salad in the food processor. If you like it really fine, that is the best way. I’d just as soon chop it up coarsely with a knife as opposed to having to get the food processor out and go to the trouble of cleaning it afterward. Big old chunks of ham are a beautiful sight! You’ll notice from the photo that I also don’t cut the skin off my ham, but just leave it on there. I don’t see any reason to add an extra step to things. You can if you like, of course, but if you’d rather not just consider it a wee more on the gourmet side. Kinda like how we made that stew a few days ago and didn’t peel the potatoes but just called it “rustic” instead. It’s all in the perspective…

Place your ham in a mixing bowl. Add Mayo.

See how easy this is already?

Add pickle relish.

I’m using the same cup I had the mayo in and just eyeballing it. No sense in dirtying up another measuring cup.

Add in your mustard

Don’t stress if you don’t have this exact type of mustard. Just use what you have on hand and roll with it.

Some of the best recipes came about by folks using what they had on hand.

Here we go. Ready to stir!

It doesn’t look too purty right now but hang in there with me.

Stirred up well

Oh, let me tell ya about my bowl.

This is a Pyrex mixing bowl from the sixties-ish era and the pattern is called Snowflake Garland. It is one of my favorite patterns because this is the pattern of dishes my Grandmother Lucille had when I was a little girl (for those of y’all who have heard this story before, bear with me!).

We didn’t have much money at all growing up so we never ate out. We actually won dinner for our family at McDonald’s once and it was such a big deal that we had a family photo taken out front! But Grandmama and Grandaddy both worked and could afford food out from time to time. A lot of times they’d invite us over to their house for supper. Lela (my great grandmother who lived with them) would make corn and rolls and Grandmama would make her mashed potatoes and then they’d go get Kentucky Fried Chicken to go with it. We’d eat it on these snowflake garland plates and to us that meal was just such a treat. To this day, whenever I use my snowflake garland plates, I think “These plates are for the fancy food!”.

If you’d like to read more about the plates we had growing up and why I use the dishes I do, there is a tangent on that in my Pork Chop Biscuits post.

After you have everything all stirred up and added in, add in your chopped boiled eggs.

Stir gently. Your ham salad is now ready!

You can refrigerate it for a while to allow the flavors to blend well or you can just eat it right now.

Guess which one I’m gonna do?

Ham Salad

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped smoked or baked ham- diced as finely as you like
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
• 2 boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
• 1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard
• pepper to taste (I usually don't add salt because the ham is salty, but add it if you like!)

Instructions

1. Chop up ham with a knife or food processor (however fine you want it to be). Place ham, mayonnaise, relish, mustard, and pepper in a bowl. Stir with spoon until well blended. Gently stir in chopped eggs. Serve on sandwiches, rolls, or crackers.
2. Makes about three cups ham salad.

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Posted by Christy Jordan on Sep 23 2010. Filed under Main Course, Quick&Easy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry