The best Swedish Meatballs are made from scratch with a savory beef and pork blend, simmered in a creamy homemade gravy. This is a classic comfort food that brings restaurant-quality flavor to the kitchen!
Swedish Meatballs is that dinner my whole family begs for.
Swedish Meatballs is that dinner my whole family begs for.We make this Swedish Meatballs recipe all year round, because it uses simple pantry staples, and is a super budget-friendly dinner I can throw together without a special grocery trip. The meatballs and creamy sauce are both made completely from scratch, which gives them that comforting, homemade taste you just can’t get from store-bought or frozen versions. Best of all, it’s easy enough that my kids can help make it; they love getting involved in shaping the meatballs or stirring the sauce, and they all love eating it.
Check out all of my kid-friendly recipes like Healthy Muffins, Mongolian Noodles, American Goulash, or Baked Mac and Cheese!
How to make Swedish Meatballs:
Form and Cook Meatballs: Combine ground beef, ground pork, breadcrumbs, egg yolk, sautéed onion, allspice, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Roll into 1-inch balls and cook in a hot skillet with oil, turning until evenly browned.
Make Sauce: In the same skillet, melt butter and whisk in flour until golden. Slowly add beef broth, stirring until thickened. Stir in sour cream, season with salt and pepper, then return meatballs to the sauce. Serve these easy Swedish Meatballs over egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or rice. I love serving it with a side of French Green Beans or Roasted Vegetables.
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Recipe
Swedish Meatballs
Equipment
- Meat Chopper , to mix the meatballs
Ingredients
For the Swedish Meatballs:
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil (28g), divided
- 1 onion , diced
- 1 pound lean ground beef (454g)
- 1 pound ground pork (454g)
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (60g)
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (0.5g)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (0.5g)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (9g)
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper (1.5g)
For the Gravy:
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter (57g)
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (40g)
- 3 3/4 cups low-sodium beef broth (900mL)
- 3/4 cup sour cream (180g)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper , to taste
- 2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley (8g), chopped
- 1 lb egg noodles (454g), cooked (or cooked rice), for serving
Instructions
- 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.1 onion
- In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, egg yolks, allspice, nutmeg and onion. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.1 pound lean ground beef, 1 pound ground pork, ½ cup breadcrumbs, 2 large egg yolks, ¼ teaspoon ground allspice, ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt, ¾ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- Stir mixture with a meat chopper or 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.
For the Swedish Meatball Sauce:
- 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.¼ cup unsalted butter, ⅓ cup all-purpose flour, 3 ¾ cups low-sodium beef broth
- 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.¾ cup sour cream, Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Notes
Nutrition
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*I originally shared this recipe August 2014, adapted from Damn Delicious. Updated March 2019, August 2022 and July 2025.
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I love these old school recipes that bring me back to my childhood. Swedish meatballs being a favorite.
I tried it with ground chicken and loved it. Have made it several times since and even my anti recipe tampering husband enjoyed it.
Been searching for an authentic recipie for this dish. Thank you!
Great recipe! I am not a great cook but this turned out amazing. I love Swedish meatballs and usually eat store bought Marie Callendars and Stouffers. This recipe is superior to any of these. I froze 3/4 of the meatballs and now have a quick meal for many nights to come. Thank you. This was great.
I made this recipe tonight.The only thing I didn’t like was when I melted the butter and added the flour.The flour came out lumpy.The next time I will mix the flour in some water and stir it up before adding to the butter.Other than that the recipe came out ok.I added all the rest of the ingredients.Hopefully the next time it will be better.I added extra salt and it still needed more on my moms helping.I will be making this again.I have to learn how to get the sauce smooth.
I think that the reason the flour came out lumpy was probably because the water in the butter had not been cooked off before adding the flour. All butter has some water – I’ve heard that American butter has more water than European butter.
Made this dish tonight and everyone enjoyed it. The only thing I
would do differently is to cook the meatballs in the oven for the
sake of time and having them cooked evenly. i served the meatballs
with egg noodles. I’ll be making these again. Thanks for the recipe.
In 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.
Thanks for your great tips!
Going by reviews
I 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.
In 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.
Such 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:-)
I’m so happy you and your husband liked them! Thanks for coming back to comment!
My 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!
Indeed this recipe is top notch. Family recipe had been lost and found this one on line. I love the addition of the sherry prior to adding butter and flour. Thanks!