My Swedish Christmas Table wouldn’t be perfect without the classic Swedish Meatballs. Make these rich meatballs for your friends and family this Christmas. The recipe uses some of the juice from the Quick Pickled Cucumbers, which are an ideal complement to this festive dish.
Many supermarkets and meat markets sell a meat loaf mix of ground beef, pork, and veal. However, if the mixture isn’t available or you can’t buy ground pork or ground veal separately, you can grind the meat yourself in small batches in a food processor.
Serve these with my Corn Mashed Potatoes recipe, Quick Pickled Cucumbers, Glögg, and St. Lucia Buns to create a perfect Swedish Christmas meal.
Swedish Meatballs Recipe
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients:
For the Meatballs
½ cup dry bread crumbs
¼ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
½ pound ground chuck or sirloin
½ pound ground veal
½ pound ground pork
2 tablespoons honey
1 large egg
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
For the sauce
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream
¼ cup lingonberry preserves
2 tablespoons juice from Quick Pickled Cucumbers
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Prepare the meatballs: Combine the bread crumbs and heavy cream in a small bowl, stirrin with a fork until all the crumbs are moistened. Set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Ad the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes, until softened. Remove from the heat.
3. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, veal, pork, onion, honey, and egg, and mix well with your hands. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the bread crumb-cream mixture and mix well. With wet hands (to keep the mixture from sticking) shape the mixture into meatballs the size of a golf ball, placing them on a plate lightly moistened with water. You should have about 24 meatballs.
4. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the meatballs, in batches if necessary, and cook, turning frequently, for about 7 minutes, until browned on all sides and cooke through. Transfer the meatballs to a plate, and discard all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the skillet.
5. Prepare the sauce: Return the skillet to the heat, whisk in the stock, cream, preserves, and pickle juice, and bring to a simmer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the meatballs to the sauce, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens slightly and the meatballs are heated through. Serve hot with mashed potatoes, preserves, and Quick Picked Cucumbers.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello Marcus, my name is Rachel and I LOVE your Swedish Meatballs. Every time I come in from college in Indiana, my mother and I stop over at Macy’s for dinner and I always have your meatballs! They’re amazing!
I tried making your version at home tonight (I’m part Swedish and usually make my grandma’s version, but the gravy of yours is addictive). I tried making the gravy over 5 times…..and it turned out horrible for me. I used everything in the recipe except pickle juice (didn’t have any and was out of vinegar to make the cucumber brine). I used regular heavy cream, lingonberry preserves, chicken stock, and S&P. I was just wondering if there was any type of specific chicken stock or cream you use. Please help me with this. (:
-Rachel F.
These are pretty tasty, but I did make a few mistakes with my “practice” batch. My second batch, which I took to a party, turned out much better. Some recommendations: 1) Don’t leave the bread crumb mixture sitting. Mix it right before putting it into the meat mixture and it won’t clump as much. 2) Saying this makes 24 balls caused me to make the balls too large. Make them small and you’ll end up with a larger batch of 40-50 and they’ll hold their shape better. 3) Don’t worry if the balls aren’t completely cooked after 7 min. You’ll be putting them back in the pan later with the sauce to simmer. And 4) at the end, take the meatballs out of the pan first and put them in your serving dish. Remove the pan from the heat and let the sauce stand for quite a while, and it will thicken up more. Pour it on the meatballs when you are ready to serve and it will stick more vs. just running off and to the bottom of the dish. While both batches tasted the same, the second batch was much more presentable.