Swedish Meatballs
Tender meatballs seasoned with allspice in creamy gravy, served with lingonberry. A Scandinavian holiday tradition.
- 1 lbground beef
- 1/2 lbground pork
- 1/3 cupbreadcrumbs
- 1/4 cupmilk
- 1 largeegg
- 1/4 cuponion(finely minced)
- 1/2 tspground allspice
- 1/4 tspground nutmeg
- 3 tbspbutter
- 2 tbspflour
- 1.5 cupsbeef broth
- 1/2 cupheavy cream
- for servinglingonberry jam
Meatballs can be shaped and frozen raw, or fully cooked in sauce and refrigerated up to 3 days. Reheat gently in sauce.
- 1Soak breadcrumbs in milk for 5 minutes.
- 2Mix beef, pork, soaked breadcrumbs, egg, onion, allspice, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
- 3Roll into 1-inch balls. You should get about 30 meatballs.
- 4Brown meatballs in batches in butter over medium-high heat. Transfer to plate.
- 5In same pan, whisk flour into drippings. Cook 1 minute.
- 6Gradually whisk in beef broth, then cream. Simmer until thickened.
- 7Return meatballs to sauce. Simmer 10 minutes until cooked through.
- 8Serve with toothpicks and lingonberry jam on the side.
Swedish meatballs — known in Swedish as köttbullar, meaning "fried balls of minced meat" — have a documented Swedish history stretching back at least to the early 18th century, with one of the first printed recipes appearing in Cajsa Warg's 1755 cookbook. Their origin is the subject of genuine historical debate: Sweden's official Twitter account noted in 2018 that their recipe may have been inspired by the Ottoman Turkish dish köfte, possibly via King Charles XII of Sweden, who spent several years in the Ottoman Empire after his defeat at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. Whatever the path of influence, Swedish meatballs became a fixture of the smörgåsbord, the Scandinavian tradition of serving multiple small dishes for shared dining. Christmas meatballs specifically are seasoned with allspice, a distinction documented in Swedish cookbooks from the 1930s, and are traditionally served with lingonberry sauce and cream gravy.