Ham and Egg Salad

Ham and eggs are a natural pair, especially in a sandwich-style salad featuring green garlic, spicy brown mustard, and crunchy celery.

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Ours is a house where hard cooked eggs disappear in the blink of an eye. I regularly cook up at least a dozen each week to eat in sandwiches, salads, and as snacks.

One of our favorite hard cooked eggs recipes is this ham and egg salad. It’s not all that fancy or new, but it’s a great way to use up leftover ham after a holiday.

What is ham and egg salad?

Traditional egg salad is usually a combination of hard cooked eggs, mayo, mustard, and celery. The lesser-known ham salad is similar, only with minced ham replacing the eggs in the recipe.

This recipe for ham and egg salad is a mash-up of the two, consisting of hard cooked eggs, chopped ham, mayo, chopped celery, Dijon mustard, and chopped green onion.

Serving suggestions

Ham and egg salad is delicious as a sandwich filling as well as in lettuce wraps. It’s also good spread on crackers.

I once served this salad on a baguette which was actually a bad decision. The crusty baguette was a little too tough to make it a pleasurable experience; the salad oozed out the sides. Serve this egg salad on soft sandwich bread or a soft roll.

I know. Egg salad isn’t super photogenic. Don’t be judging. It’s still pretty tasty.

Ingredients

The ingredients list for this recipe is super simple. Check it out:

hard cooked eggs – These are one of the main building blocks of the recipe. No omitting them. You can purchase them pre-cooked and peeled at the store or cook them yourself in the pressure cooker, air fryer, or stovetop. Got extra uncooked eggs? Be sure to check out our recipes for what to make with eggs.

ham – You can use any ham you typically buy, such as deli slices, ham steak, or leftovers from a Slow Cooker Ham. Chop it fine so that you don’t have big chunks in your salad. If you have lots of ham that you might not use in a short amount of time, remember you can freeze ham you have leftover in portions. You can also use chopped cooked bacon if you prefer. Be sure to make this Creamy Ham Pasta with Peas & Tomatoes if you’ve got extra.

celery – One rib is all you need. If you’re not sure what to do with the rest of the stalk (Yes, that whole bundle of celery is called a stalk), you can add it to a Veggie Tray. You can also freeze sliced celery.

mayonnaise – Use whatever brand you prefer or you can make homemade mayonnaise.

Dijon mustard – I love the kick that Dijon gives to recipes. A little dab will do you. You can also use yellow Mustard, the more piquant English mustard, or spicy brown mustard if that’s what you prefer.

green onion – Originally I developed this recipe with green garlic that I received in a CSA share. It’s pretty hard to find normally. Feel free to use green onion, green garlic, shallot, or sweet onion.

salt and pepper – Add either/both until it suits your taste. For a fun twist, you can sprinkle Everything Seasoning on your finished salad or sandwich. So yummy!

Instructions

Making ham and egg salad is super simple. Chop all the ingredients, mix together to taste in a bowl, assemble sandwiches or lettuce wraps.

Voila! Mischief managed.

Make-ahead instructions

Depending on the moisture content of your ham, the salad may get weepy after a couple days. It’s best consumed within two days of preparation.

Store the salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Assemble sandwiches or wraps just before serving to avoid sogginess.

Recipe costs

Knowing how much it costs you to prepare a recipe can help you decide if it’s the type of recipe to make regularly or one you might want to save for special occasions. Let’s crunch some numbers and see how this recipe pencils out.

• eggs – $0.75
• ham – $1.00
• mayonnaise – $0.20
• celery – $0.20
• mustard – $0.02
• green onion $0.10

A batch of this salad, serving six, costs $2.27/batch or $0.38/serving. Add a loaf of bread and you’ve got a super affordable lunch or sandwich dinner.

How to save more

Already, this salad recipe is a good cheap eat, but you can save more when you use the Good Cheap Eats System:

Shop the pantry – Use what you have whenever possible, whether that’s a different kind of mustard or subbing in bacon for the ham.

Make a plan for leftovers – Be sure not to waste the egg salad or the leftover ingredients. This makes a tasty breakfast on toast. Revisit the ingredients section for tips on what to do with leftover ingredients.

Shop wisely – Try to avoid expensive stores and do try to shop the sales. Eggs, ham, and mayo are the top expenses in this recipe. Grab them on sale whenever you can.

Make your own – Cooking from scratch can be a great way to squeeze a little more from your grocery dollar. In this instance, making your own mayonnaise may be a way to do that.

Kitchen equipment

Here’s what I use for this recipe:

• egg slicer – Not sure my kids would be happy without an egg slicer in the house. As you can tell from the picture, this is a great tool for quickly chopping eggs for salad. Slice the egg one direction, then pick it up, holding the slices intact, and slice it the other direction to cross-hatch the eggs. The slicer we have is heavy-duty, German-made.
• mixing bowl – a good set of stainless steel mixing bowls should last you a lifetime.
• spatula – a one-piece silicone spatula is super handy for stirring and scraping, both in mixing bowls and in frying pans.

This post was originally published on April 2, 2013. It has been updated for content and clarity.