One of the perks of having big dinners over the holidays is the leftovers.  We had a nice ham for Christmas dinner, so I was sent home with a good amount of leftover ham.  I immediately knew that I would need to make ham salad.  This is just like chicken salad, but with ham.

Apparently, ham salad isn’t very common outside of Pennsylvania and the southeastern states.  I suspect this is less so in recent times with the internet.  We do love mixing things with mayonnaise in these parts.  I looked at quite a few recipes until I realized that I like a pretty basic ham salad, so this is my simple recipe for it.  It should make three or four sandwiches, depending on how much you eat before you use it to make sandwiches…

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of ham, chopped finely
• 2 tbsp of mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp of mustard
• 1 tbsp of dill pickle relish

First, a word on ingredients.  Something this simple depends a lot more on the ingredients you use.  I used a grainy, stone-ground mustard that really had a nice kick.  I also used Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise.  (I’m kind of a mayo snob, and that’s the only real mayo as far as I’m concerned.)  For the relish, I chose dill relish instead of sweet relish because I wanted less sweetness.  Obviously, you can use any brand that you like, and adjust the amounts to your taste.

I like my ham chopped finely for this recipe.  You can certainly cube it, or even run it through a food processor. 

Then just add it to the mayonnaise, mustard, and relish.  Mix it together and you’ve got ham salad!  This will be even better if you keep it in the refrigerator overnight.  You can spread it on bread to make a sandwich, or maybe eat it on a homemade cracker…