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
Video
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.
Notes
Nutrition
I have celiac The first time I made this a couple months ago I made it over rice which was delicious. The meatballs and sauce were rich and tasty!! (drooling writing this haha!) I finally found some really GOOD tasting gluten-free egg noodles; therefore, I am going to make this again this week with the noodles this time. Can’t wait!! Great great great recipe!!! Yummm!!!!
Thank you so much, I love these meatballs over rice as well.
This was an awesome dinner! I made a change to make it gluten free. My husband, daughter and I loved it.
Thank you Brandy,
Seriously good sauce. I had left over meatballs in the freezer and used this sauce. It was great.
thank Kathleen, yes I love the sauce. One of my favs is on mashed potatoes.
Thank you. Husband-approved meal. I was attracted to them by the gravy–it looked like my mother’s. They are not really Swedish meatballs with the oregano, but they will be made again, husband liked.
Hi Jean, so glad your husband enjoyed the recipe. Have a great Holiday season
If I want to triple this recipe do I literally triple everything? Any ingredient I shouldn’t triple but maybe double?
Hi Gail, I would only double the oregano, and start with double Worcestershire sauce
and Dijon mustard, then add more to taste.
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.
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.
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.
If the sauce is to liquified does it thicken as it cools?
Hi Denise, the sauce will thicken as it cools.
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