Swedish Meatballs
Indulge in rich and savory Swedish Meatballs for dinner. These tender meatballs are smothered in an amazing tasting creamy gravy and served over egg noodles or mashed potatoes.
My family loves comfort food recipes and this is one of their most requested. You can prepare the meatballs ahead of time for a quick and easy weekday meal. This meatball recipe also makes a great appetizer to serve at your next party.
What are Swedish Meatballs?
Swedish Meatballs are a comforting, classic dish consisting of juicy ground beef meatballs smothered in a creamy gravy. The sauce is usually made with warm spices like allspice and nutmeg. My husband does not like allspice or nutmeg with ground beef so I like to flavor my sauce with a combination of Worcestershire sauce, beef stock or beef broth, dijon mustard, black pepper, and salt.
Tip
The key to making flavorful Swedish meatball sauce is scraping all the browned meatball bits off of the bottom of the skillet. Pan-frying in a cast iron skillet works perfectly for this. I use a combination of butter and olive oil when browning the meatballs because the olive oil helps prevent burning the butter. Burned butter will not make a great tasting sauce, so keep an eye on the heat while browning your meatballs!
How to make Swedish meatballs
- In a large bowl, combine ground beef, sautéed onion, garlic and oregano.
- Mix in salt, pepper, egg, and breadcrumbs.
- On medium heat, brown meatballs on all sides, carefully turning so they don’t break apart.
- Transfer meatballs to a sheet pan and keep warm in the oven while making your sauce.
- Add butter and flour to the pan to create a roux, then add in beef broth, cream, Worcestershire sauce, and Dijon mustard until sauce thickens.
- Add meatballs into sauce, cover and simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes. Season to taste.
Substitutions
- Ground Beef – use a combination of ground beef and ground pork. You can even substitute ground turkey or chicken.
- Spices – add nutmeg or allspice for a more traditional Swedish Meatball recipe.
- Panko breadcrumbs – regular breadcrumbs, pieces of bread or saltine crackers.
- Substitute ground beef meatballs with this Turkey Meatball recipe.
What to serve with this recipe?
Serve Swedish Meatballs with broad leg noodles, rice, or this great tasting recipe for Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Top these juicy meatballs with different condiments such as classic Swedish lingonberry jam, cranberry sauce or mustard pickles
favorite recipes using ground beef
Budget friendly and versitile, ground beef is ideal for making so many family friendly meals.
Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh oregano chopped or 1 teaspoon dry oregano
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 5 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 2 cups beef broth warmed up
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- In a small bowl combine panko bread crumbs and milk. Let sit for 10 minutes until breadcrumbs have soaked up the milk.
- In a large skillet heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil with 1 tablespoon of butter.
- Add the onions and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and oregano and sauté for another 1-2 minutes.
- In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, sautéed onion, garlic and oregano.
- Mix in the salt, pepper and egg. Combine until the eggs are mixed into the ground beef.
- Add the breadcrumbs to meat mixture and combine well.
- Use a tablespoon or scoop to make equal sized meatballs. This recipe makes approximately 20 meatballs.
- Reheat the skillet used to sauté onions and garlic, adding a bit more olive oil and butter if needed.
- On medium heat, brown the meat balls on all sides, carefully turning so they don't break apart.
- Don't overcrowd the skillet with meatballs, work in batches.
- Transfer the meatballs to a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven while you make the sauce.
- Add 4 tablespoons of butter to the skillet. Once melted whisk in the flour and cook until golden brown.
- Slowly stir in the heated beef broth and cook at a temperature that keeps the sauce at slow bubble.
- Add in the cream, Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard and simmer until sauce thickens at bit.
- Add the meatballs into sauce. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Serve over egg noodles, broad noodles or mashed potatoes.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Just prepared this tonight and my granddaughter’s and I are all fans. We’re not fond of mushrooms so I’m happy to have found your recipe. Thanks so much for sharing!!
Happy Eating 🙂
Thank you for trying the recipe LaMinta
I doubled this recipe for a group of 6 adults and 2 teenage boys! We had plenty leftover and all of the guys literally went into a food coma right after dinner! In the south, a food coma is the best compliment you can give the cook….. Ha ha ha!
Fabulous recipe….. Will DEFINITELY make again and again!
Thanks!
Thank you Kim, I feel honoured to have a “food coma” recipe.
SO yummy! My husband asked what brand they were! LOL!! Thank you for the great recipe!
Thank you Caitlin, so funny that your husband asked what brand 🙂
Is it possible to sub ground turkey for beef and then chicken broth for beef?? These look so tasty!
asolutely Nikki, that would taste great. The sauce would be lighter, but still taste great!
Just finished making these and they looked perfect until I added the cream. Perhaps it was an error in my measuring but my sauce went from a beautiful golden brown to milky white. I was expecting a lightening effect but the one cup of cream was just too much in my opinion. I have two grandkids visiting. Hopefully they will taste great.
Hi Lisa, I cook the meatballs in a cast iron skillet so it may brown the meatballs a bit more. Its those little bits that stick to the bottom of the pan that add flavour and colour to the sauce.
Just made this for the first time tonight. It was yummy, and the family liked it…even our picky 7 year old. I will definitely make it again.
When the 7 year old likes a recipe, that is a true compliment 🙂
Can I use Italian bread crumb or would that be too much? Looks like a great recipe!
Hi Emily, are you using the seasoned Italian bread crumbs? if so it would work, but the flavouring would change from the original recipe, which would still probably taste good.
I am considering this for a large crew as a part of a donation meal we are doing for a shelter home. Any suggestions on how far in advance this canned by cooked and the best way to transport and reheat?
Hi Frances, you cook it a day ahead, keep refrigerated and then reheat.
Thank You so much for this awesome recipe. I not only make it for my family but even have several times for company (especially company with kid) always to rave reviews! I actually despise the Ikea version of this and have tried other recipes that were just OK This one rocks!
you made my day with this comment Tara 🙂
Hello,
This recipes looks great, but I was wondering is it possible to switch out beef for chicken or do you not recommend it? I was planning on using ground chicken and chicken broth for this recipe. Please let me know. Thank you.
I think ground chicken would be a great alternative to try!
Hello Laureen,
Thanks for the fast response. I just tried your recipe with ground chicken and chicken broth tonight and it was delicious. I added in some fatty ground pork so that it would balance out my lean ground chicken though. In all, I recommend this recipe and will be making it again in the future. Thank you.
Terrific Emmie!
This was absolutely fantastic! I loved it so so much! And it was damn the torpedoes as far as all the oil, beef fat, butter and cream went. I used a spoon to clean the suace off my plate and when cleaning my cast iron pot there was a moment where I was tempted to lick it. I used my fingers instead 🙂
Thank you so very much!
Lindsay
That is awesome Lindsay, so glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Making this hopefully tomorrow….plus making extra meatballs to freeze for busy nights with school and homework.
Having a extra meatballs in the freezer is a great idea for those busy days!
So, I’m a bit picky and I hardly EVER follow a recipe precisely. This one is as close as I’ve gotten. The only change I made was that I was out of panko so I made my own bread crumbs. I found that it took about 2x the amount of crumbs to the same amount of milk. Otherwise, I followed the directions exactly. It was fantastic. I am about to make it for the 2nd time. Thank you for sharing. 🙂 PS – I don’t even like meatballs. LOL 🙂
I a thrilled you enjoyed the recipe, thanks for taking the time to drop me note.
I made this tonight and it was SO GOOD. I used regular bread crumbs instead of Panko and didn’t soak them in milk but kept everything else essentially the same. We served it over rice because it’s typically a heavier dish and felt the rice kept it a little lighter, but it was a perfect dish for a rainy day!
Hi Michelle, thankyou for dropping me a comment, so glad you enjoyed the recipe
I made this tonight, and hands down, this is the best Swedish Meatballs I’ve ever had! I followed your recipe exactly, and it turned out so amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe, I’ll be making this dish often!!
Thank you so much Jules. Thanks for taking the time to comment. So glad you enjoyed the recipe.
Made a few days ago. Very good thank you.
thank you Belinda for dropping me a comment, glad you liked the recipe.
Pinterest brings me to so many yummy recipes, and this is one of them!
I made these for our family of 5 last week and even the picky kids ate them! Now that’s a miracle lol!
I made the recipe exactly as is and served with mashed potatoes and carrots. There was a good amount of sauce which was fantastic with the potatoes!
The Worcestershire sauce is definitely the ingredient that makes the flavor pop.
Thanks for sharing! This one is definitely a keeper!
Thank you for taking the time to drop me a comment, its awesome when you find a recipe the whole family loves.
I made this for my wife and daughter tonite it was easy and very good ,can’t wait to eat the left overs
That’s great Scott, happy your family enjoyed the meatballs!
Do I use whipping cream or 18% cream or is there a different one? Also I doubled the meatballs so should I double the sauce too or just leave it
Hi Sherri, I use whipping cream. Yes I would double the sauce.
I really like this recipe for meatballs and I’ll try it but there is no Swedish about these meatballs. Trust me, I’m Swedish! 🙂
Mayby a little bit italian and a bit english but you don’t have garlic and oregano in swedish meatballs. Nor Worchester sause and Dijon mustard.
But I’ll still try it out because it sounds really good. But I would not try to have the on the Christmas table! 🙂
These were absolutely delicious. Loooooooved them. Will definitely make these again.
Thank you Tina, so happy you enjoyed the recipe.
I made these, good but next time I will use fattier beef as I used grass fed lean and think fattier would be better.
In real swedish meatballs there is also pork
If the sauce is to liquified does it thicken as it cools?
Hi Denise, the sauce will thicken as it cools.
Have you made this recipe and froze it ? I’m catering a wedding rehearsal dinner and would like to get them done ahead of time .
Hi Becky, I have not froze this recipe. I never have enough left over. Meatballs usually freeze quite well, so I don’t think it should be a problem. Best it probably make a batch and test freezing them.
Hallo and Greetings from Sweden the meatballs looks good but are not Swedish!.
We dont put oregano and djon mustard and garlic in the meatballs.
We only have salt and black pepper and onion.
A brown sause made of salt pepper and cream then some soy sause for color
Then we eat them with boiled and lingon berry jam.
Brilliant!nice warming supper for Christmas Eve at our daughters ,grandson Matty will be looking for more and our Fikey eater (son in law John ) will have a problem with Santa if he complains!!! Great recipe thank you ,Merry Christmas Jan in the Scottish Borders
Thank you Jan, hope you have a wonderful Christmas season.