Ham Balls - Dump and Go Dinner
Filled with hints of holiday flavor, these festive ham balls are great for sharing! Graham cracker and brown sugar sing of the sweetness of the season while the rich mixture of ham, pork, and beef give these saucy bites delicious staying power.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds Ground Pork
- 1 ½ pounds Ground Ham
- 1 pound Ground Beef
- 3 cups crush Graham Crackers
- 4 individual Egg
- 2 cups Milk
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 15 fluid ounces Tomato Soup
- 1 teaspoon Mustard Seed, Ground
- 6 tablespoons Vinegar
Containers
Supplies
Cooking Instructions
Freeze For Later Cooking Day Directions
These directions help you cook or prepare this meal PRIOR to being frozen for serving later (see Serving Day Directions when you are ready to prepare it to eat).
Why would I want to freeze this?
- In a large bowl, mix ground meat, graham cracker crumbs, eggs, and milk until thoroughly combined.
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Make From Frozen Serving Day Directions
These directions help you cook or reheat this meal AFTER it's been frozen for when you are ready to eat it.
- Thaw: In fridge
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Make It Now Cooking Directions
These directions are for cooking this recipe to serve immediately and NOT to freeze for later.
- In a large bowl, mix ground meat, graham cracker crumbs, eggs, and milk until thoroughly combined.
- Form ham mixture into 1/2 cup balls and place in 9x13 baking dish.
- In another bowl, mix brown sugar, tomato soup, ground mustard and vinegar with whisk.
- Pour sauce over.
- Bake at 350F for 1 hour.
Nutrition Facts
- Servings Per Recipe
- 8 Servings
- Serving Size
- about 8 ounces Amount Per Serving
- Calories
- 922
- Total Fat
- 54g
- Saturated Fat
- 19g
- Trans Fat
- 0g
- Cholesterol
- 289mg
- Sodium
- 1230mg
- Total Carbohydrates
- 57g
- Fiber
- 0g
- Sugar
- 39g
- Protein
- 50g
- WW Freestyle
- 32
33 Comments
Join the discussionI’m among the group this is foreign to, do you dice or grind up the ham first?
Sounds like something I may try.
Liza – The ham ball mix is a ground meat mixture. If your local grocer doesn’t carry the ground ham loaf mix, you need to purchase ground smoked ham, and ground pork. Hope this helps. Lisa
Lisa – My mom was just making these the other day! I grew up in Iowa, so they were a staple during holiday celebrations too! My grandma makes the best ones! I live in MI now and they are not familiar with them…neither is my husband. Thanks for the reminder…I’ll put these on the menu for next week. Blessings!
As a young bride I was astonished to hear woman talking about making ham balls. I had this picture in my head of someone sitting down with a melon baller tool and trying to make pretty round “ham balls”.Since then I have learned to make and love ham balls, going to try this recipe as soon as possible. Thank you for the recipe and bringing back that funny memory for me.
OK, I’ve never heard of this so I’m still confused on the smoked ham. Is this like a smoked ham that someone grounds afterwards or is it like a smoked ham luncheon loaf that has been run through a grinder.
Shannon –
Smoked Ham is a ground ham product in your grocers’ meat department. In our area, our meat department sells the mix of ground pork and ground smoked has as “Ham Loaf”. So I just purchase 3 lbs of ham loaf and 1 lb of ground beef for the recipe.
Lisa
my grocery store doesn’t have ground smoked ham or ham loaf mix. what can i use instead? could i buy smoked ham lunch meat and put it in the food processor? or is that something totally differnt?
Stacy-
Great question! I just take it for granted that in Iowa we have ham loaf in our grocers’ meat department. AFter doing some research, here is what I found.Using a Kitchen Aid grinding attachment or a food processor on pulse action, grind up cooked ham, cured ham, leftover baked ham.Hope this helps! Enjoy!
Lisa
I am from Michigan and we don’t have readily ground up ham in the meat section. I’m not sure what I would substitute for the ground ham without a grinder of my own. Maybe canned ham? I’ve never heard of ground smoked ham before now.
Using a Kitchen Aid grinding attachment or a food processor on pulse action, grind up cooked ham, cured ham, leftover baked ham.
I have NEVER heard of these. They sound delicious. I’ll definitely give them a try.
I wasn’t able to make this correctly because we do not have ground ham and I didn’t grind the ham at home. I made these using ground pork and ground beef … I also used a different type of tomato soup versus the original kind. With those said changes, my husband and my one daughter really liked them … my two other kids did not.
How many balls does one recipe make? And, how many balls constitutes as one serving? I’m part of a 7 family co-op that i’d love to make this for. Perhaps I’d serve them with green beans and mashed potatoes… but I wondered what a good serving suggestion would be for a family of four times 7 families based on the above recipe quantities.
Sorry, my question wasn’t great. I know the recipe makes 25 balls, but how many balls would you say each family would need? If it’s a four person family (2 balls per person? or are they large enough where one ball would be sufficient?)…thanks!
Ceri-
The ham balls are a nice size…so normally my kids eat about 2 and adults 3-4 depending on their ages. My suggestion with a family of four would be 12 minimum.
I made these for Easter and this recipe is a keeper. I have already shared it with family down “south” in Kansas. I used the ham loaf mix from Fareway plus ground beef. Very good.
Thanks for sharing Beth! Here in Iowa I use Fareway meats as well!
Do you ever freeze them and bake them later? Didn’t know since they have raw egg in them
Is the tomato soup the kind you have to add milk to or ready to eat tomato soup?
It is the condensed tomato soup, which is the kind that you have to add milk to.
I lived in Iowa for ten years and haven’t had the infamous Iowa Ham Balls since I moved nearly five years ago. There is a meat market in our community, so I am going to ask them to grind the ham for me. It’s worth a try. BTW – I am now in southern Georgia and quite sure no one is familiar with ham balls.
I have made something like this for a long time here in MI, but I use a spicy pineapple sauce over mine. They are great no matter what covers them!
I used 3 lbs ground pork (still hard to find in CO) and these still tasted great! Probably not the same, but still good!
Hi, I saw this as part of the GFDF menu plan, but wonder how you make it GFDF? The recipe calls for graham crackers, milk, and tomato soup (which I believe has wheat flour in it).
Thanks!
These can easily be made GF with a few substitutions. I use a GF graham cracker (or in a pinch any kind of cracker or bread crumb). Subbing a non dairy milk and an organic GF tomato soup for the rest works great.
Do you eat these like a normal meatball over spaghetti or just meatballs with a side? Thanks
Mandy, they are more of an entree or appetizer type dish.
Is this recipe similar to the one at Historic NAUVOO? Called but they won’t share their recipe. Have a family member that used to live in Warsaw and isn’t doing well and asked if he could have some of those ham balls from there… any suggestions? is this recipe closes?
This recipe is a Once a Month Meals original. Enjoy!
If I wanted to make these 2 days ahead and put them in a crockpot for serving, would you advise freezing, or would they keep well in the refrigerator? If they will keep in fridge, should I bake them first?
Hi Kathy! I would suggest cooking them all the way and reheating in the slow cooker on the day you’d like to serve them. Or, freeze them for 1 night and thaw the night before you want to make them.
Do you use uncooked or cooked ham
Hi Delores, this is uncooked ground ham. Thanks!