Juicy, tender, spiced Swedish Meatballs in a smooth and creamy brown gravy is the comfort food you’ve been dreaming of. So much amazing flavor for the whole family to enjoy. Serve it with mashed potatoes or pasta but don’t forget the lingonberry jam!
SWEDISH MEATBALLS
There is nothing like a meatball night at my house. Whether I’m making Italian meatballs, Swedish meatballs, creamy turkey meatballs, or even shrimp meatballs, it’s one of our favorite nights. My personal favorite is the Swedish meatballs because of the spices and the cream sauce, but my husband prefers Italian meatballs to all. (Not to say that he doesn’t devour these juicy, creamy meatballs with a smile on his face.)
Swedish meatballs, köttbullar, are probably one of the best-known Swedish cooking specialties. IKEA made them popular in the states and I am very grateful for that. These meatballs are made with a combination of ground pork and ground beef (or sometimes veal), bread or bread crumbs, milk, onion, and spices. The combination of spices like allspice, nutmeg, white pepper, and sometimes ground ginger is what separates these meatballs from others.
Traditional way of serving Swedish meatballs is with creamy brown gravy, mashed (or boiled) potatoes, and of course, lingonberry jam. But there is no one “authentic” recipe for Swedish meatballs. Much like Italian meatballs, everyone’s grandmother makes the meatballs their own favorite way and those are considered to be the best.
Whether you use my recipe or you have one of your own, Lingonberry jam is something that you shouldn’t skip when serving Swedish meatballs. If you have a hard time finding it at the store, you can substitute cranberry jam or red currant jam.
HOW TO MAKE SWEDISH MEATBALLS
Make The Meatballs:
To make the meatball it doesn’t get much easier, simply combine all ingredients in a bowl and give it a good mix.
I like to use a scoop to get even amount of meat mixture to that all the meatballs are the same size. I also highly recommend that you roll all the meatballs before starting to cook and lay them out on a sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil.
Melt butter in a large cooking pan and cook meatballs over medium heat. Flip the meatballs once the meatballs are browned on one side and cook them until almost done. Take the meatballs out of the pan but leave all the juices behind to make the gravy.
Make The Sauce:
In the same pan where you cooked the meatballs, melt a little more butter and whisk in flour. Once the flour mixture looks smooth, keep whisking and start pouring in warmed beef stock. Let the mixture come to simmer, while still slowly whisking, and add sour cream, Dijon mustard, heavy whipping cream, salt and pepper.
Once the sauce starts to thicken, add meatballs back in and simmer everything together for a few minutes.
Can I Make It Ahead Of Time?
Yes, you can! You can make just the meatballs ahead of time or you can prepare the meatballs and the sauce ahead. Store it in the refrigerator, in an air-tight container and reheat the next day.
This dish is easy to reheat on stove-top, in a large pan. Transfer the meatballs and the sauce into the pan and reheat it with a lid on over medium to medium-low heat.
If you prepared just the meatballs ahead of time, make the sauce as directed, add meatballs to the sauce, and cook until meatballs are hot throughout.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH IT
Mashed Potatoes (or boiled potatoes)
Baked Potato
Pasta
Egg noodles
Lingonberry jam
CAN I FREEZE THEM?
Yes, but without the sauce. Meatballs are wonderful to prepare ahead of time and freeze. You can portion them into several batches and thaw overnight in the refrigerator for an easy weeknight dinner.
I have a whole post dedicated to freezing meatballs, so give it a read.
To freeze the meatballs, prepare them as instructed in the recipe and lay out cooked meatballs on the cutting board covered with parchment paper. Once they are cooled to room temperature, place the cutting board in the freezer for 1-2 hours. (Set a timer!)
Portion frozen meatballs into zip-lock freezer bags, get as much air out as you can, label, and place in the freezer.
Thaw meatballs in the refrigerator overnight. Prepare the sauce according to the recipe and simmer meatballs in the sauce until reheated.
MORE MEATBALL RECIPES TO TRY
Roasted Garlic Rosemary Baked Meatballs
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Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 lb ground beef (85%/15%)
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1 slice of bread soaked in milk and gently squeezed
- 1/4 cup milk from soaking the bread
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- salt to taste
- 3 tbsp butter for cooking
Sauce:
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 2 cups beef stock warmed
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- salt to taste
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
- dash nutmeg
Instructions
Meatballs:
- Combine all ingredients for meatballs in a bowl and mix until everything is evenly incorporated.Â
- Use a scoop to get even amount of meat mixture so that all the meatballs are the same size. Roll all the meatballs before starting to cook and lay them out on a sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil. Â
- Melt butter in a large cooking pan over medium heat.
- Add meatballs to the pan and cook until about half way done and bottoms are browned. Flip the meatballs and cook until almost done.
- Take the meatballs out of the pan and leave all the juices in the pan.
Sauce:
- In the same pan where you cooked the meatballs, melt a little more butter and whisk in flour. Once the flour mixture looks smooth, keep whisking and start pouring in warmed beef stock.
- Let the mixture come to simmer, while still slowly whisking. Add sour cream, Dijon mustard, heavy whipping cream, salt, nutmeg, and pepper.Â
- Once the sauce starts to thicken, add meatballs back in and simmer everything together for a few minutes. Take off heat and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles on October 10, 2011. Updated January 17, 2020.
Katerina says
Beautiful meatballs! We have something similar in Greece too!
Linda says
Looks delicious!!
Tiffany @ Eat at Home says
These look fantastic!
Kelley @ TheGrantLife.com says
(found ya on a link party)
This looks great! I love swedish meatballs but never thought to make my own meatballs. Thanks for the recipe! 🙂
BigBearswife says
I’ve never tried Swedish meatballs, but they do look good
sugarspiceiced says
These look fantastic!! I love eating Swedish Meatballs at IKEA! I have even bought them from their freezer section to make at home. I’ll have to try this recipe from scratch sometime. Thanks for sharing it!!
Ashley says
might just have to try these!! thanks for sharing:)
http://jaysonandashley.blogspot.com/
Casa De Luna says
Yum! Bring on the lingonberries!
Lindsay says
Is that really all there is to it?? I have got to try this! I always thought it was much more complicated. Great job! Thanks so much for sharing this @ Show & Share! I am so happy that you did!
Emily says
thanks so much for linking up to Tasty Tuesday! can’t wait to see what you’ll bring this week. http://nap-timecreations.blogspot.com/
Cathy@LemonTreeDwelling says
This looks like one of those comfort dishes you NEED when it’s cold outside! My family would devour these!!
lyuba says
Thank you, Cathy!
My boys requested even in the summer 🙂
Matilda says
Amazing to see a version of Swedish meatballs outside of Sweden. Though that was a very local dish
The traditional way here, is to serve them with boiled potatoes, lingonberry jelly, pickled cucumber and sauce.
If you lose the dill in the sauce, and the nutmeg and the allspice in the meatballs you’ll be even closer to the original.
And instead of flour on the hands while rolling, dip the hands in water 🙂
But I’ll try to sell this recipe to the family, not sure if I can convince them to have dill in their beloved sauce though;)
Love, the girl from IKEA land
lyuba says
Thanks for letting me know that I was close 🙂 Unfortunately, I’ve never been to Sweden but it’s always great to know the authentic way of cultural cooking! Thanks, Matilda!
Matilda says
Great blog you have by the way!
And if you would be planning a trip to Sweden,
Wait at least until May or June:)
By then the ices have melted and the weather would hopefully be at its best behaviour;)
lyuba says
Thank you!
We are actually going to Russia in May (home for me). Some day, I’d like to travel the while Europe 🙂
Rebecca says
Hi!
Totally agree with Matilda, you should drop the dill and nutmeg. 🙂 Also, most of us swedes doesn’t use a whole slice of bread in milk (never heard of!), instead we just use some plain bread crumbs in the mix. Another thing I thought about is that we don’t cook the meatballs in the sauce, we fry them by them selves first and then make the sauce in the same pan after to get all the flavours. 🙂
lyuba says
Thank you for the suggestions, Rebecca! The meatballs are actually not cooked in the cause, they are cooked first, taken out and then added back to the sauce. The bread is something that my grandmother used to always do when making meatballs, so that’s my own little touch. I like it that way so I shared it 🙂 This is my take on the recipe but I will definitely try your suggestions!
Jessica says
I’m Swedish and live in Sweden (as I see someone else above do as well) and I must admit I’ve not seen meatballs like this – BUT that is NO critique, so I do not mean it in a bad way at all 😀 And as you say; there are many different kinds (the basic is more or less always ground beef/pork, onion, black pepper, egg, breadcrumbs+milk/water or cream and salt). Anyways, I found the photo of your meatballs on Google; thought they looked different and delicious so I clicked – and after reading the recipe I’m definitely gonna try this some day 😀 I’m in a come-up-with-new-kind-of-meatballs-spree so it’s fun to go outside “the Swedish meatball-thinking” and see what people abroad do and come up with 😀 Anyway, great page and lovely photos! 🙂
lyuba says
Thank you for your comment, Jessica! Every cook definitely has their own touch to recipes. My main though on trying to cook an authentic recipe from a different cuisine is the ingredients. Not all ingredients are available or even the same in every country. For example, my Russian dishes (and I am Russian, born and raised) never come out the same here as they did in Russia. And that is due to the difference in ingredients.
I’m glad you like my version and I do hope that you try it! They came out delicious!
JillGruetz says
My recipe handed down from my Swedish grandmother (born in 1899) had cardamom, nutmeg and allspice in the recipe (I used a scant amount of allspice and cardamom.) It called for soaking bread in milk and used a mixture of beef, pork and veal. Fry in butter and use the pan drippings for the gravy. I still make them for our family. We like to serve with Swedish Rye Bread. I just found your site and am enjoying perusing. Thank you very much.
Sasha says
I made these for some friends yesterday & we all LOVED them! The nutmeg & allspice made them especially delicious. Your website is beautiful & will be my go-to spot to find recipes for every cooking occasion. Thank you!