Swedish Meatballs
Swedish Meatballs have been one of my favorite meals for many years. While living in California, we were near relatives who happen to be Swedish. I would host a dinner each holiday season and Swedish Meatballs were always a hit. These are tender yet springy and substantial. The sauce is not just a sweetened beef gravy, it’s a tangy, sweet, and savory cream sauce. Paired with some pickled cucumbers, lingonberry preserves, and maybe some buttered noodles or roasted potatoes make this an outstanding dinner.
When we go to the effort of making a batch of Swedish Meatballs, we typically make enough to stock the freezer with multiple dinner portions. A well-stocked freezer with some emergency meals is a treasure and just the safety net needed in summer with so many fun activities in full swing. Plus, we don’t have air conditioning, so a freezer pull that doesn’t require a lot of kitchen activities that generates heat is a huge win.
I’ve made many types of meatballs and I honestly like them all. This recipe adapted from Cook’s Illustrated is a bit different in process and the results are well worth the work. A stand mixer is a must for whipping the pork, and the panade of bread, egg, and cream provide moisture and structure for the perfect meatball. Just don’t mix the beef too aggressively, that will create a denser texture. So, while the ingredients are important, the process is even more so. I like quite a bit of sauce, so this has been expanded to accommodate plenty of sauce for noodles, rice, or roasted potatoes.
Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 2 slices high-quality white bread crust removed and bread torn into 1" pieces
- 1 lb. ground pork
- 1 med onion grated on the large holes of a box grater
- ¼ tsp nutmeg freshly grated
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- 2 tsp packed brown sugar
- 3 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 lb. 85% lean ground beef
- 2½ cups vegetable oil
Sauce
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 3 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
- 4½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 3 tbsp packed brown sugar
- 1½ cups heavy cream
- 2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
For the Meatballs
- Whisk eggs and cream together in a medium bowl. Stir in the bread and set aside. Meanwhile, in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat pork, onion, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder on high speed until smooth and pale, about 2 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed.
- Using a fork, mash bread mixture until no large dry bread chunks remains; add mixture to the stand mixer bowl and beat on high speed until smooth and homogeneous, about 1 minute, scraping bowl as necessary.
- Add beef and mix on medium-low speed until just incorporated, about 30 seconds, scraping bowl as needed.
- Using moistened hands, form generous tablespoon size meatballs. About 50-60 meatballs.
- Heat oil in a 10" straight sided sauté pan over medium-high heat until the edge of a meatball dipped in oil sizzles (about 350 degrees). Add meatballs in a single layer and fry, flipping once, halfway through cooking until lightly browned and cooked through, 7-10 minutes, adjusting the heat as needed to keep oil sizzling but not smoking. Using a slotted spoon, transfer browned meatballs to a paper towel-lined plate. Repeat until all meatballs are cooked.
For the Sauce
- Pour off and discard oil in pan, leaving any fond (browned meat bits) in the pan. Return the pan to medium-high heat and add butter. When foaming subsides, add flour and cook, whisking constantly, until flour is light brown, about 30 seconds. Slowly whisk in broth, scraping pan bottom to loosen browned bits. Add brown sugar and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium and cook until sauce is reduced to about 3 cups, 5-10 minutes. Stir in cream and return to a simmer. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.
- Add meatballs to sauce (you may only want to add as many as you're serving and keep the extras separate for the freezer), simmer, turning occasionally, until heated through, about 5 minutes. Stir in lemon juice, season with salt and pepper, and serve.
