Happy Healthy Home's Swedish Meatballs

Not a professional photographer and just an inexpensive camera but we are lucky to have a picture for you before this yummy goodness disappeared! 

After recently, FINALLY, visiting IKEA and tasting their meatballs-  it was time to make some homemade Swedish Meatballs. I've made this off and on over the years but never really had the right taste, good yes but not quite what I wanted. So today I combined 2 recipes and it turned out great! So here's what I did-

Swedish Meatballs-
2 lbs. ground chuck (or 1 lb. beef/1 lb. pork sausage I don't do this, might try it sometime)
1 large sweet onion
2 Tbsp. butter
4 slices bread, broken into pieces
2/3 cup milk
2 eggs
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. allspice

To begin- Pour 2/3 cup milk into 4 cup bowl, add the bread pieces, toss with fork to let the bread soak up the milk. Set aside.


Chop up onion very small, then saute in 2 tbsp. butter. Set aside to cool. 

Add meat, bread, eggs, salt, pepper, allspice and onions to food processor. Blend until well combined. (yes this is messy to clean up but a necessary step!)

Use a 1 tbsp. cookie scoop to scoop your meat out and then roll meatballs. I like to do all my scooping first and put the balls on the pan. Then I go back over the pan and hand roll each ball making it nice and round. It can be helpful to line your baking sheet with aluminum foil for easier clean up.


Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until nice and browned. 


Gravy-
6 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
2 cups beef stock (I use my homemade premade I keep in the freezer - could use as much as 2-4 cups here as desired)
1 cup sour cream


Melt butter in pan add in flour and salt making a nice roux. Let it bubble and brown just a bit, slowly add in the beef stock making a nice gravy. Feel free to add more or less stock depending on how thick or thin you want your sauce. Turn to warm and stir in the sour cream. 


Served with mashed potatoes and lingonberries the only thing you are missing from IKEA is the little Swedish flag in your meatball! And I think these may be a tad healthier too, being homemade.


Meatballs can be made up ahead in large batches and frozen for this meal, dippin' in ketchup, crockpot with ketchup/grape jelly sauce, for meatball subs, spaghetti and meatballs etc... Really quick meal if you can keep some of these stocked in your freezer!