Can I Make Ham in Diet Coca Cola?

Our answer

Whilst there is no particular technical reason why Nigella's Ham in Coca Cola (from Nigella Bites and also on the Nigella website) couldn't be made with a diet cola, some people find the taste of artificial sweeteners to be slightly unpleasant and if you are cooking with diet cola the taste of the sweeteners is likely to be concentrated and could affect the taste of the ham. We have not tried the recipe using diet cola and therefore it is not something we would recommend.

You could instead consider trying Nigella's Fully Festive Ham recipe from Feast (p16) and just use double the quantity of apple juice instead of the combination of apple and cranberry (cranberry juice tends to be fairly heavily sweetened). We understand that apple juice can be used in some diabetic diets, though requirements vary so you should always check beforehand. Obviously the glazes on hams have some sugar in, but it is fairly easy to remove the glazed part of the ham from individual slices.