Swedish Meatballs just like the ones at Ikea! Complete with a creamy meatball sauce, you’ll LOVE this easy meatball recipe for a quick weeknight meal.
When it comes to Homemade Meatballs, there is nothing like serving them with a creamy beefy gravy over some Fluffy Mashed Potatoes. It’s an easy, delicious weeknight Dinner the whole family will love!
Table of contents
Sabrina’s Swedish Meatballs Recipe
Meatballs are a dish we collectively go gaga for every time we go to Ikea. The “Ikea Meatballs” my kids refer to become the thing they pine after the entirety of our walk through the top floor of the store. We got to the point where we’d started buying the frozen bags until one afternoon I decided I would make it myself.
Making meatballs aren’t even that hard and with a really EASY trick in the recipe below, you’ll have the perfectly round meatballs you see at Ikea. Plus I included the amazing sauce to finish them off so all you’ll need is some creamy, fluffy mashed potatoes to recreate this favorite dish!
While Swedes do not usually use this creamy brown gravy with their meatballs, this is an Ikea Meatball copycat so I’ve gone all the way with it. To eat it like an authentic Swede, serve it plain with noodles or mashed potatoes with just a bit of butter or lingonberry jam.
Quick Recipe Summary
- The ingredients for meatballs are easy and quick with a mix of beef, pork, and milk-soaked bread.
- Freeze your meatballs before browning to prevent the meatballs from losing their perfectly round shape or just brown immediately if you don’t care.
- After browning in the pan, they are added to the pan of cream gravy to thicken and coat them.
- Swedish meatballs (at least at Ikea) are served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
MEATBALLS
- 3 slices bread
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/2 cup minced yellow onion
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter , divided
- 1 pound ground beef , 80/20
- 1 pound ground pork
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg , freshly grated
CREAMY BEEF GRAVY
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 4 cups beef stock
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper , (regular black pepper is fine too, but you’ll see the flecks of pepper)
Instructions
TO MAKE THE SWEDISH MEATBALLS:
- In the bowl of your stand mixer add the milk to the slices of bread.
- Melt the butter in a pan and add the minced yellow onions.
- Cook them on medium low until translucent but not browned.
- Remove from heat and let cool.
- In your bowl with the milk soaked bread add the rest of the meatball ingredients including the cooked onions, but only 2 tablespoons of the butter.
- Mix it on low until the bread is broken apart and the meat is combined with the ingredients (using the stand mixer and not your hands helps keep the mixture cold and tender).
- Using a meatballer or your hands scoop them into balls about the size of a ping pong ball.
- Freeze on a cookie sheet if possible.
- If cooking immediately, add the rest of your butter to your skillet and cook on medium high on all sides for a total of 4-5 minutes.
- Remove the meatballs from the pan.
TO MAKE THE GRAVY:
- Add the butter to the pan, then add the flour and whisk until combined on medium heat.
- Cook the flour 1-2 minutes or until it just starts to brown a bit.
- Add in the beef stock and whisk well until combined.
- Add in the rest of the ingredients and whisk together.
- Add the meatballs back in and coat with the gravy until it is thickened, another 3-5 minutes
- Top with parsley (optional)
Nutrition
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Can you make these ahead?
Cooking the meatballs is my favorite part of this recipe and it really makes these meatballs perfect for meal-prepping. I asked one of the people at Ikea how do you cook Ikea meatballs but they said they were mostly pre-cooked and just warmed through. It made me realize the best way to cook them and preserve the shape was to roll them, freeze them and cook them from frozen.
Chef’s Note: Swedish Meatballs
Most standard meatball recipes use just one type of meat, but this Swedish version is made from pork and beef. Even though the ingredients list on the bag of Ikea Meatballs just says “meat”, most copycats agree its a combination instead of just beef. Another difference between a standard meatball and a meatball like you’d find at Ikea is the creamy beef gravy they swim in.
Just a note about the recipe card: To make authentic Swedish meatballs they call for using cooked and cooled potatoes along with rusk flour (which is made from biscuits made from yeasty bread…aka NOT easy to find locally). As a replacement for this in this meatball recipe, I’ve used milk and bread.
Tips for Meatballs
- You may be familiar with a meatball recipe that adds breadcrumbs to their meatball mix, but I like to add milk-soaked bread instead. It keeps just enough structure to mix with the meat while preserving the moisture in the meatballs while they cook.
- I also freeze the meatballs before they’re browned which keeps the shape of them as you brown them. They finish cooking through in the sauce.
Frequent Questions
Meatball sauce is actually a beef and cream gravy with beef stock, heavy cream, a splash of soy sauce, salt, and pepper. The meatballs are added back into the pan to thicken it and coat them. I included sauce recipe in this post.
Frozen raw meatballs brown evenly and maintain their ball shape and don’t cook down into a lumpy looking rock. They keep their interior moistness as they are still only about half cooked in the middle by the time the gravy is added.
Special Tools & Ingredients
- Meatballer: The less you handle ground meat the less the heat of your hands will break down the fat in the meat making a tougher meatball. This handy tool makes them uniform in size and keeps them from getting tough.
- Lingonberry Jam: If you can find some of this delicious Swedish jam, it is so worth the splurge. You could also use Cranberry Sauce.
Related Posts
More Homemade Meatball Recipes
The following images were used in previously versions of this post.
I only use the gravy recipe here because I buy frozen homestyle meatballs Instead of making them. With those, this becomes an easy 30 minute dinner. The gravy recipe is spot on. My husband, the Swede, says it should have a pinch of nutmeg, but I disagree. It’s perfect. If you use frozen meatballs, cut your water down and use 3.5 cups instead of 4.
Ah! I love that you made the gravy with your frozen meatballs (lol!)! How many times have we all done that to save time! Thanks Mary for the great five star review!
The gravy didnt have the tangy taste it should. Maybe it would be better if we add a little worcestershire sauce.
I’m sorry to hear you were disappointed. Let me know if you add worcestershire sauce next time.