Swedish Meatballs
Sonia pointed out to me that I had never added a printable to this recipe! So, here it is, this time with a printable.
Since Swedish Meatballs have popped up in my menu plan posts more than a few times, several of you have been asking for the recipe.
I first gave this recipe a try because the last side of beef we bought came with a lot (a LOT) of ground beef and I was trying to figure out more ways to use it. And it's become a favorite of several of my kids.
It's nothing fancy, but the browned meatballs in the simple broth/cream sauce are awfully tasty.
Oddly enough, when I made this recipe the last time, I was out of local beef, so I used Aldi's grass-fed beef instead.
Actually, if you opt for 100% beef instead of the beef/pork mixture the recipe calls for, you can make this entire recipe with Aldi ingredients (even the nutmeg, because they carry it as a special purchase this time of year.)
I got the recipe from Cook's Illustrated, of course (from the big Cook's Illustrated cookbook). I've gotten so, so many good recipes from that book. It has no photos (boo!) but it is an excellent cookbook notwithstanding.
I'm going to give you a picture-filled version (of course!) of their Swedish Meatball recipe today.
The only thing is, this recipe isn't super photogenic, and like most meatball recipes, could possibly be renamed The Dish Where Many Disgusting-Looking Things Come Together To Make A Delicious Meal.
First, you make a panade, which is just a mixture of bread, egg, and heavy cream. This helps to keep the meatballs moist and also helps them hold together.
Unappetizing, but it works!
And then you combine ground beef, grated onions, spices, salt, pepper, and baking powder in a mixer bowl.
Beat the meat and spices together for about 2 minutes, then add the panade and beat for another minute.
The original recipe calls for 8 oz pork and 8 oz of beef. You beat the pork with the spices/onions/etc., beat in the panade, and then gently stir in the ground beef. I have no idea if this is important when you use all beef, but I'm just throwing it out there in case it is!
(I have never used a pork/beef combo.)
With wet hands, shape the meat mixture into 1-inch meatballs.
In a 12-inch skillet, heat 1 ¼ cups vegetable oil to 350° F, and then add the meatballs to the oil. Flip meatballs once halfway through cooking (they'll take about 7-10 minutes total).
Mine never all fit in the pan in one batch (and I frequently double the recipe anyway for our family of 6), so this takes a few go-rounds for me.
Put the cooked meatballs on a paper-towel-lined plate.
Carefully pour the oil out of the skillet, and in the now-empty skillet, melt a tablespoon of butter. Stir in a tablespoon of flour, cook for 30 seconds, and then stir in 1.5 cups of chicken broth (I used my homemade broth), scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen all the good browned bits.
Add a tablespoon of brown sugar and simmer the sauce for about five minutes.
Once it's reduced to about a cup, stir in a half cup of heavy cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. The amount of salt you need will greatly depend on how salty your chicken broth is.
The recipe calls for a little bit of lemon juice at this point, but I usually forget to add it and no one has complained. Choose your own adventure, I guess!
Add the meatballs into the sauce and gently cook until the meatballs are warmed through.
We usually serve this over noodles, but you could also do mashed potatoes. Or we've also served it without a starch and that works fine too.
Obviously, you could opt to bake the meatballs instead of pan-frying them, but I've been loathe to do that because I'd hate to give up the yummy browned bits on the bottom of the pan. I fear it would make the sauce inferior, and since no one at this house is really needing to do a bunch of calorie-cutting, I carry on with the frying.
But if you need to reduce caloric intake, then by all means bake the meatballs. It's faster and less messy for sure!
Oh, and I use my Aldi-obtained cast iron skillet (Aldi! Not just for food!) to make these, but you could also use a regular skillet.
Swedish Meatballs
Scroll down for a printable!
Meatballs
1 large egg
¼ cup heavy cream
1 large slice high-quality white sandwich bread, crusts removed and bread torn into 1-inch pieces
8 ounces ground pork (or ground beef)
1 small onion, grated on large holes of box grater (about ¼ cup)
⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground allspice
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon packed brown sugar (see note)
1 ½ teaspoons table salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
8 ounces 85 percent lean ground beef
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil (for frying)
Sauce
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
½ cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon
Salt and ground black pepper
Beat the egg and heavy cream together in a medium-sized bowl. Add the bread and mash with a fork until mixture is homogenous.
In a mixer bowl, combine the pork, onion, spices, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder. Beat on high speed for about two minutes. Stir in bread/heavy cream mixture and beat for an additional minute. Mix in the ground beef.
With wet hands, form the meat into 1-inch meatballs; place on a baking sheet.
In a 12-inch skillet, heat vegetable oil to 350 ° F. Add meatballs and cook, flipping once, until done, about 7-10 minutes. Remove meatballs to a paper-towel-lined plate.
Carefully pour oil out of skillet. In now-empty skillet, melt butter. Stir in flour and cook for 30 seconds. Gently stir in chicken broth, scraping up browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. Add brown sugar, and cook sauce for about 5 minutes, or until reduced to a cup. Stir in heavy cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add lemon juice if desired.
Stir meatballs into sauce and heat until warmed through. Serve over noodles or mashed potatoes.
(After I typed all this up, I realized you might wonder if Aldi or Cook's Illustrated sponsored this post. But nope, they didn't! I'm just quite the Aldi/Cook's enthusiast. 😉 )
Swedish Meatballs
These meatballs and sauce are tasty over noodles or mashed potatoes.
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 large egg
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 large slice high-quality white sandwich bread, crusts removed and bread torn into 1-inch pieces
- 8 ounces ground pork (or ground beef)
- 1 small onion, grated on large holes of box grater (about ¼ cup)
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon ground allspice
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon packed brown sugar (see note)
- 1 ½ teaspoons table salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 8 ounces 85 percent lean ground beef
- vegetable oil (for frying)
Sauce
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon
- Salt and ground black pepper
Instructions
To make meatballs:
Beat the egg and heavy cream together in a medium-sized bowl. Add the bread and mash with a fork until mixture is homogenous. In a mixer bowl, combine the pork, onion, spices, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder.
Beat on high speed for about two minutes. Stir in bread/heavy cream mixture and beat for an additional minute. Mix in the ground beef.
With wet hands, form the meat into 1-inch meatballs; place on a baking sheet.
In a 12-inch skillet, heat vegetable oil to 350 ° F. Add meatballs and cook, flipping once, until done, about 7-10 minutes. Remove meatballs to a paper-towel-lined plate.
To make sauce:
Carefully pour oil out of skillet. In now-empty skillet, melt butter. Stir in flour and cook for 30 seconds. Gently stir in chicken broth, scraping up browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.
Add brown sugar, and cook sauce for about 5 minutes, or until reduced to a cup. Stir in heavy cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add lemon juice if desired.
Stir meatballs into sauce and heat until warmed through. Serve over noodles or mashed potatoes.
Notes
If you'd like your sauce on the thicker side, use 2 tablespoons of flour instead of one.
The original recipe calls for pork and ground beef; I always just use ground beef and it's fine.
Funny, I just made these (using a Food Wishes recipe) because of your blog! I took his recommendation about serving them with a tart jam - I went with red currant, he recommended loganberry - but aside from that garnish have struggled to figure out what to serve them with. Peas and carrots, and rolls? Noodles, and applesauce? What do you serve with these scrumptious meatballs? Thanks!
Noodles, yes! And you can also serve them over mashed potatoes.
Swedish reader here! We would simply serve them with boiled potatoes and with some lingonberry jam on the side. Fun to see an American interpretation of this recipe... Never heard of adding baking powder and sugar. Chicken broth in the sauce was also new to me. Am surprised to see the recipe does not contain egg - I've never seen that being left out (I was taught that is what makes the meatballs stick together). I and many others tend to skip the allspice and just use salt and pepper. Some like to add juniper berries though. That goes particularly well with elk meat if that's what you are using. Sorry for the long comment, never knew I had so much to say about meatballs!
Oh, it does! You mix the egg in the beginning with the cream.
I think it's equally fun to have a Swedish perspective. Thanks for chiming in! 🙂
I agree. Isn't the internet grand??
Made this tonight--thumbs up from whole family! Followed the recipe exactly (including the EGG that is called for). Took Lovisa's recommendation to serve with small potatoes on the side (just like IKEA does--that's been my sole exposure to Swedish food here in California). Couldn't find lingonberry preserves at my local store, but substituted cranberry sauce. Thanks for a delicious keeper, Kristen!
1. I like serving with rice, or soft rolls to sop up the sauce.
2. For a side, I'd go with something shaped and colored differently. Maybe roast asparagus, roast cauliflower, or a salad that has greens and mandarin oranges.
@Liz,
Colleagues who lived in Sweden eat them with mashed potatoes and red beetroot. They also add mustard to the sauce and some tart sweat (lingon?) berry jam.
WET hands, genius!
I've relegated myself to oven meatballs (actually on the meal plan tonight) because they always fall apart when I try in the pan.
Wet hands make ALL the difference, especially with a very soft meat mixture like this one.
Yes, wet hands does the trick. I also rinse a cutting board and place the meatballs on that wet surface after I've rolled them. Then they are easy to transfer to the pan when it is time to fry them. You could also try adding an egg to make it stick together better... Just mix it in (raw) with the minced meat.
Yum, yum. I do a similar dish called Lazy Daisy Meatballs, but it calls for rolling the meatballs in a little flour to brown, then making the sauce with canned soup. I thinking making your own sauce is so much nice! I will try this recipe soon. P.S. I used ground turkey and no one here ever even realizes it...
So the Cooks "Illustrated" Cookbook isn't illustrated? Sorry, I couldn't resist.
It's illustrated rather than photographed. So, line drawings instead of pictures!
Ahh...I see. So my funny isn't funny after all.
I think I might add this cookbook to my Amazon wish list. I've radically thinned my cookbooks through the years due to space limitations, but despite the lack of photos, this one sounds worth the space on the shelf.
Dawn, I thought the same thing! Ahh, the irony :).
The recipe probably gets you to beat the ground pork and then stir in the beef to get a the right texture- the pork will beat into a smooth, almost pate-like paste and then your unbeaten ground beef gives the meatballs their primary flavour and a less uniform (and therefore more appetising) texture.
Do you beat half your beef, or just stir it all in?
I've beat half my beef in the past...so part is smooth and part is not so smooth. Maybe beating the first half isn't necessary if you have beef? I dunno. I do know that what I'm doing turns out a meatball my family likes. Ha.
We just had this recipe for dinner with friends last night - too funny. We really enjoyed it - for the six of us (including two 4-year-olds) there were barely enough left overs for one lunch - and we doubled the recipe. Because I doubled it, and didn't feel like standing over the stove browning meatballs ad nauseum, I baked them - on foil-lined baking sheets topped with a cooling rack - then I took the browned bits from the foil and incorporated that into the sauce. It's definitely a keeper.
Oh, good trick for still getting the lovely browned bits.
I also was thinking that I could always fry just a few of the meatballs in a little bit of oil to get some browned bits going and then bake the rest.
Love simple, quick, and east recipes like this. Pinned!!
It strikes me as terribly ironic that the Cooks Illustrated book does not have pictures.
It DOES have illustrations (line drawings). Ha. But no photographs. The America's Test Kitchen line of books have beautiful photographs, though!
Swedish meatballs were a staple at my childhood dinner table int he 1950s. My mother was Swedish, but this meal was all convenience! Her meatball recipe was much like yours with the addition of Franco American gravy from a can, And served with Franco American macaroni and cheese from a can. We always thought it was the best meal ever!
What is the difference between grass-fed beef and regular corn-fed beef?
It's just what they're fed...grass vs. grain. The whole idea is that cows are designed to digest and live on grass, not corn, so feeding them grass results in a happier, healthier cow (who generally doesn't need to be an antibiotics and antacids and such).
I love Cook's Illustrated! I don't have this cookbook (I have the ATK Family Cookbook and their Cooking for Two 2009 cookbook, and a dozen magazines), but I found this recipe on their website and I'm so glad I made it. Delicious!!!!!!!
Could light cream or 1/2 and 1/2 substitute for the heavy cream? We always have one of those on hand and prefer to keep things a little lighter than heavy cream. However, if the heavy cream is essential for the recipe, I'll do it!
Yep, you could! The sauce just wouldn't be quite as rich.
Thanks! You're. Always so helpful! 🙂
I just made this using store-bought frozen meatballs. To get the browned bits, I browned some ground beef immediately beforehand. Otherwise, the only thing I did differently with the sauce was to add a pinch of nutmeg (since it wasn't going to be an ingredient in the frozen meatballs!). Pretty quick and considerably less messy. 🙂 Huge success! Thanks!
Thank you SO much for posting this!! I lost the Cook's Illustrated with this recipe in it and it's an absolute must have at my family's Swedish Christmas Eve dinner. Cheers!
Finally got to trying this recipe! I'm terrible about following instructions - I prefer to improvise as I go. 😉 But, I do have to say that the splash of lemon juice as the end seriously makes a huge difference. Worth keeping for those wondering.
I will have to try this recipe. My mother always made with a white gravy. I had tried but it did not come out well. I have pork and beef in the freezer. As I am trying to shop my freezer, this is a good one. Thank you.
You have so many great recipes on your site and I think you should make a separate post about your biscuits. I was searching your blog for a biscuit recipe several months ago because I thought I remembered you making them in the past. The only hit I found was your chicken and biscuits. I haven't made the chicken part of the recipe, but your biscuits are sooooo delicious and easy. I bake a batch at least once a week to serve with dinner or sausage biscuits for breakfast. I think everyone should know about this hidden gem.
You know what's funny? I have never made those biscuits except to use on top of that casserole!
I should try that out myself.