The Best Leftover Ham Recipes

Here are a bunch of easy leftover ham recipes to use after the holidays. How to use your diced ham after Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Thrown into hearty soups, a breakfast casserole, or make our Leftover ham turnovers!

We always have oven baked ham leftovers and hate being wasteful. We’ve made several things ourselves but I thought about including a few more ideas this year from other bloggers. Enjoy your holidays and try something new this year with your leftover sliced ham from the big meal. 😉

Leftover Ham Soup

Our Loaded Baked Potato Soup is something we make often. My daughter even asked for it for Christmas dinner this year! You can use diced meat from the day before or add a ham hocks into the middle so the meat falls off the bone when done.

How long is leftover ham good for?

It is not unlike any other food kept in the fridge, generally 3 days is recommended but you could stretch it to 5 typically. It is best if you only slice what you are going to eat then and there or it will dry out. Leaving it in a larger chunk will keep it moist.

We’ve got lots of suggestions if you want something thicker more like a casserole or side dish like our slow cooker ham and beans or Crockpot ham and potatoes dishes.

Are you sick of the regular old?? We’re here with a few tweaks like air fryer sandwiches and ready to try other leftover ham recipes now too!

What can you make with leftover ham other than sandwiches?

Of course you can make some scrambled eggs, dice up what’s left and throw that in. Use your air fryer and make an air fryer breakfast omelette of sorts. Or try ham and cheese roll ups that can be thrown together in no time for dinner! When it’s cold outside and I have meat to use I love adding it into a hearty soup like Instant Pot lentil soup.

What is the best recipe with leftover ham?

Your leftover Christmas ham has endless possibilities for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I absolutely hate to waste food in general but more so if it was once delicious and I know it would add a ton of flavor to other dishes the next day, or throughout the week. Think way beyond sandwiches, those are totally boring, Ham Pot Pie is better.

If you love leftover ham soups we have a bunch of those. They’re probably my favorite because you can throw in a bunch of ingredients, boil and serve it up with a few rolls.

Our Instant Pot potato cheese soup is great to throw leftover ham into. Then make a hash brown casserole, or air fryer hashbrowns in the morning for your crew. Added into scrambled ham and eggs with cheddar cheese is an easy one but that is just the very beginning.

Throw it into an Instant Pot casserole for a cheesy pasta dish if you like. I know not everyone is small appliance obsessed like I am so I’ll include the “old fashioned” method of cooking in a Crock as well below. I still use that for sure but my go to is a pressure cooker nowadays.

• Slow cooker scalloped potatoes are always better with diced ham
• Green beans with ham and potatoes works well
• Ham and cheese breakfast bites are perfect when you’re on the go
  • These savory breakfast muffins are perfect bites.

Crockpot split pea soup and/or Instant Pot split pea soup recipe are perfect with ham thrown in. If you do you won’t need any seasonings at the end. That is another plus because there is enough sodium in the meat, and flavor, that adds to the otherwise bland vegetable soup. So killer my husband who hates peas actually thinks this is amazing.

How to Use Ham Leftovers

This year I came up with a new leftover ham recipe here that uses puff pastry and my kids loved them! 😉 Anything they can pick up and becomes finger food of sorts is always a huge winner to them, and makes me a hero for dinner.

• Make our tetrazzini recipe with this precooked meat
• You can make slow cooker cabbage and ham all diced up.
• Baked macaroni & cheese with ham from Who Needs a Cape!
• Major Hoff Takes A Wife makes cheesy ham & potato pie with her leftover ham!

What to make with a lot of ham

Make our creamy Crockpot ham and potato soup with a few cups of leftovers or a pork shank thrown in there to get tender all day.

• Just Us Four has a killer ham and swiss cheese rollup lasagna recipe.
• She also made a great looking ham and vegetable quinoa dish to try.

Our asparagus casserole recipe is yummy with leftover ham. I mean every time this veggie is in season I buy several bunches. It is our favorite and can be cooked multiple ways. Serve this as a unique brunch or breakfast idea when people come over.

Slice really thin and make a fun appetizer like our dill pickle roll ups! Here is one for cheesy ham rollups that is easy! You can make them in your oven or this way as air fryer chicken cordon bleu with it diced up small.

Just use Pillsbury crescent sheet, ham, swiss cheese, and put a bit of dill into mayo. to swipe on.

More great leftover ham recipes from other bloggers we love!

Here’s tortellini alfredo with ham and peas to try from Cupcake Diaries. This cheesy scalloped potatoes with ham from Love Bakes Good Cakes…yum!! A Dish of Daily Life has a yummy creamy pasta with ham and peas dish to try!

Try these broccoli, ham and cheese bake from Serena Bakes Simply from Scratch! Ham pinwheels by Mom on Timeout would be a great appetizer or meal. This Ham dip from Buns in my Oven looks amazing.

Take a look at our slow cooker soup recipes for more ideas. Hope you gathered some great ideas on how to use leftover ham this year…do you have another recipe you love? If you have other leftover ham recipes let us know so we can add them to our list!