Swedish Meatballs
I remember when the the first IKEA was built in my area and it was all everyone could talk about. Oddly enough, I heard mention of IKEA’s Swedish Meatballs just as much as I heard about their awesome products. I had friends who would stop in for lunch just to have the meatballs! If you’ve never had Swedish Meatballs before, or if you love them but need a great recipe, TRY THESE!
What is so special about Swedish Meatballs?
Swedish Meatballs actually originated in Turkey and are a meatball dish that is served with a creamy gravy or Swedish Meatball Sauce. Swedish Meatballs are sometimes confused with Italian Meatballs but there are some differences between the two types of meatballs.
Swedish Meatballs are typically smaller in size than Italian meatballs and they are usually made with a 50-50 ratio of ground pork and ground beef. Swedish Meatballs also tend to use spices like allspice and nutmeg for flavoring where Italian meatballs rely more on parmesan and garlic flavoring.
Ingredients in Swedish Meatballs:
Swedish Meatballs are made with onion, ground beef, ground pork, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, allspice, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
The ingredients in Swedish Meatballs Sauce include butter, flour, beef broth, sour cream, salt and pepper.
How to make Swedish Meatballs:
Start by cooking the onions in a little olive oil until they are translucent.
Make the Swedish Meatballs by combining ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, egg yolk, allspice, nutmeg, and sautéed onion. Season with salt and pepper.
Stir the meatball mixture until well combined. Use clean hands to roll the mixture into meatballs about 1 inch in size. This should make about 30 meatballs.
Cook the Swedish Meatballs in a hot skillet with oil, rotating them with a fork until all sides are browned. The meatballs don’t need to be cooked all the way through.
Remove the meatballs to a plate to rest while we cook the Swedish Meatball Sauce.
How to make Swedish Meatballs Sauce:
- Melt butter in a skillet and whisk in flour until it gets slightly browned.
- Gradually whisk in beef broth, stirring constantly until slightly thickened.
- Stir in sour cream and season with salt and pepper.
- Add the Swedish Meatballs into the Swedish Meatballs Sauce and serve the meatballs and sauce over cooked egg noodles, or rice.
This is one of those meals that has really simple ingredients and flavor but it’s soo comforting and yummy! Any time I ask Jeff for some dinner ideas this is always at the top of his list. He requests them all the time!
I love to serve Swedish Meatballs with a big side of steamed veggies or a green salad.
Consider trying these popular dinner recipes:
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Homemade Swedish Meatballs are homemade meatballs smothered in creamy Swedish Meatball Sauce served over egg noodles or rice. This easy recipe is very kid friendly!
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil , divided
- 1 onion , diced
- 1 pound ground beef (*see note)
- 1 pound ground pork (see note*)
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- salt and freshly ground black pepper , to taste
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 3/4 cups low-sodium beef broth
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper , to taste
- 2 Tablespoons fresh parsley leaves , chopped
- Cooked egg noodles or rice for serving
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent, about 2-3 minutes; set aside.
In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, egg yolks, allspice, nutmeg and onion. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Stir mixture with a wooden spoon until well combined. Use clean hands to roll the mixture into meatballs about 1 1/2-in in size (It should make about 20-24 meatballs).
- Add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil to the skillet. Add meatballs, in batches, and cook until all sides are browned, about 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.
Melt butter in the skillet. Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in beef broth and cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened, about 1-2 minutes.
Stir in sour cream; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in meatballs and cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through and thickened, about 8-10 minutes.
- Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.
Recipe Video
*I've also made this with all beef, or half beef and half ground turkey, with great results!
To Freeze:
The meatballs freeze great! I like to freeze them after cooking them. Then when I want to make this recipe I make the sauce, pull the meatballs from the freezer and let them warm up in the sauce. You could also freeze them raw, then thaw them in your fridge. Brown them in a skillet, as the recipe states, and then continue to cook them in the sauce.
*1 serving equals 3 meatballs
Adapted from Damn Delicious
Have you tried this recipe?!
RATE and COMMENT below! I would love to hear your experience.
*I originally shared this recipe August 2014. Updated March 2019.
June says
December 19, 2018 at 5:00 pmMy ex husband’s grandmother was German and she made the best Swedish meatballs from a recipe her mom passed down. I wanted to find a recipe that doesn’t use soup like hers does. This is outstanding and brings back lots of memories! What a great comfort food recipe that’s easy to make. The only thing I changed is that I deglazed the pan with one tbs. sherry before adding the butter and flour. Just a personal preference. Thank you!
Shelley says
March 11, 2019 at 10:21 amSuch a good recipe! Hadn’t made Swedish meatballs in years. Really liked the “from scratch” ingredients v. canned soup from back in the day. My husband thoroughly enjoyed this stick to your ribs dinner, as did I — perfect for a cold late winter night. Bonus: Made enough for another dinner of leftovers. I served asparagus as a side dish, for a bit of green:-)
Lauren Allen says
March 11, 2019 at 12:15 pmI’m so happy you and your husband liked them! Thanks for coming back to comment!
Dierdre says
April 7, 2019 at 10:49 amI love Swedish meatballs and I love the recipes here, so the day I decided to try to make them for the first time, I was elated to find you had me covered. Sadly, I was disappointed with my first attempt. Most of the problems were my fault, but I do have 2 criticisms of the recipe. I remade them yesterday with some needed changes (again, mostly my fault).
I feel like the balls in this recipe are too big, maybe I’m just used to the size in the Stouffers version, but I went ahead and made them smaller the 2nd time. I used my cookie dough scoop and ended up with well over 40 meatballs or so.
The recipe calls to season the meat mixer to taste, none of us is going to taste raw ground pork, so that was difficult for me. I did a few twists of my salt grinder and it was far from satisfactory, the meatballs came out quite bland as did the sauce. I looked up the amount of salt to use to season a pound of ground meat and it said 3/4-1 tsp, so I went for the lower number and put in 1.5 tsp table salt.
Now on to my mistakes:
I don’t love onion, so I may have only used half an onion the first time. This was also a big part of the bland meatballs. This time I got a large Spanish onion and I diced it up as small as I could before sautéing them. Once mixed with the meat, it looked like there were way too many onions and it made the rolling of the balls a little difficult, but it solved 2 problems, the bland meat balls and the bland sauce I got the first time as well. Part of the reason my sauce was bland was that I wiped out the pan after browning the meatballs. This time I used a slotted spoon to remove the carmelized onions that had fallen out of the meatballs as I browned them, and set them aside while I blotted out the excess oil/grease in the pan, making sure to leave as much brown bits as possible. I added the onions back in after the sour cream and they made a huge difference. I also browned the meatballs much more the 2nd time which created more flavor as well.
Really all of the mistakes come from my own lack of experience, but I thought I would share my issues with anyone craving delicious Swedish meatballs, because let me tell you, this recipe is legit if you do it right.
Crystal says
April 20, 2019 at 3:40 pmIn most Swedish Meatballs recipes from Sweden, we grate the onion so that there are no bits of onion in the meatballs and it saves time in chopping the onions finely. You will get the flavor of the onion without being able to find the onion. Hope that helps for next time.
Barbara brown says
April 14, 2019 at 5:24 amGoing by reviews
Crystal says
April 20, 2019 at 3:46 pmIn our meatballs here in Sweden we normally use cream in our meatballs, this will help to keep the balls juicy. We also soak the breadcrumbs in the cream as this also keeps the meatballs juicy. Also, you will find that most people here will grate the onion into the meat, and this will keep you from getting a big piece of onion and it is also faster than chopping the onion. Maybe something to try for next time.
Lauren Allen says
April 21, 2019 at 4:17 pmThanks for your great tips!