Swedish Meatball recipe like Ikea’s
This easy Swedish meatball recipe has a rich creamy sauce, a family’s favourite dinner meal.
All of my kids’ love a trip to IKEA. They could always spot the blue and yellow sign from miles away (it’s funny – some of my kids could spot the Ikea sign and other the McDonald’s Golden Arches!!)
The treat was always to pig out on the IKEA Swedish meatballs and refillable cokes. They love the creamy Swedish meatball gravy that accompanies the meatballs.
If you are close to an Ikea you can buy these meatballs in their restaurant or frozen (and the sauce) in the shops at the exit.
Fortunately, now we are on the west coast of Ireland, the nearest IKEA is more than 3 hours’ drive away. So no more IKEA treats 😊 ! Haha!
So obviously, to satisfy the kids, we had to experiment and try and reproduce these yummy tasting easy Swedish meatballs and gravy recipe ourselves.
There are obviously lots of ways to produce meat and pork meatballs, some better than others…..and some more Swedish than others.
I prefer to use a mixture of minced beef and minced pork as I think this produces a much tastier meatball. The texture is also rather softer.
Sometimes you can buy this pre-mixed, but over here we buy the different meats separately and mix them ourselves.
The quantities are just the pre-packaged sizes available in our local supermarket.
Creamy Meatball gravy
The method and easy Swedish recipe described below creates tasty meatballs in a creamy Swedish Meatball sauce which is to die for. We think they are just like the Ikea meatballs and Ikea white gravy sauce.
The dish is effectively a one-pot Swedish meatballs method, as only one pot is used for the meatballs and sauce. However, you will need other pans for your accompaniments.
The dish can be served with pasta if you prefer, but we like it with mashed potatoes, as you can see. The quantities below will make about 24 meatballs.
If this is more than you need, you can freeze them and re-heat them in the microwave when you need them. Or you can adjust the quantities to suit.
We have trouble getting lingonberry jam locally, so we use cranberry sauce which is not quite the same, but just as good!
If you try this recipe, please let me know how you get on in the comments section below!
How to make Swedish Meatballs
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Easy Swedish Meatball Recipe
This recipe makes about 24 delicious Swedish creamy meatballs in a yummy sauce, and tastier than IKEA's (we think)!
Ingredients
- 450g minced beef
- 400g minced pork
- 50g breadcrumbs
- 1 handful parsley, finely chopped
- 30 g butter
- ½ teaspoon Garlic Granules
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 5 tbsp. butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 3 tbsp. flour
- 300ml beef stock
- 100ml cream
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp Soy sauce
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- Lingonberry jam (or cranberry sauce)
Instructions
- Boil a pan of water to make the mashed potatoes, and prepare whatever your other vegetable of choice is.
- Mix the minced beef, minced pork, breadcrumbs, parsley, nutmeg, onion, garlic granules, pepper, salt and egg. Use your hands and make sure it is well and truly mixed.
- The amount quantities should make about 24 smallish meatballs. You can use a couple of tablespoons to form the balls.
- Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and then brown the meatballs in batches until properly cooked. When finished, place them apart on a plate. If you are not sure whether you have fully cooked them, then you can always microwave the browned balls for a few minutes to make sure.
- Then melt the butter in the same pan and add the flour. Whisk together until the butter has been absorbed.
- Then stir in the beef stock and the cream. Keeping the heat low, add the Worcestershire sauce, Soy sauce and Dijon mustard, and simmer until the sauce starts to thicken.
- If you need to loosen the sauce, then add some water from the potatoes or the greens to dilute.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Then, when the sauce is as you want it (keep tasting to check), add the meatballs back to the pan and warm them up for a few minutes. Keep the sauce consistency good by topping up with water if necessary.
Notes
Serve up with creamy mashed potatoes and some sugar snaps, green beans or some braised red cabbage. Sprinkle with some finely chopped parsley to garnish.
The recipe should really have some Swedish lingonberry jam to complement it. You can normally buy this at IKEA.
But if, like us, you cannot get that where you are, then I find a cranberry sauce is a good alternative. It provides the sweet accompaniment that his meal should have. If you think this sounds weird – try it, it really is good!
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 6 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 647Total Fat: 46gSaturated Fat: 21gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 20gCholesterol: 212mgSodium: 644mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 1gSugar: 4gProtein: 43g
This nutrition information was automatically calculated by Nutritionix, but may not be 100% accurate.
If you like Ikea’s Gravad Lax, then you may also like this recipe for the mustard dill sauce:
If you liked this recipe you may wish to try :
After recipe note:
A year after I published this Ikea meatball copycat recipe, IKEA published their actual recipe for meatballs and cream sauce. You can find it here. I think you can see I was pretty close!!!