IKEA Swedish Meatballs with Cream Gravy

IKEA Swedish Meatballs are the only reason some people go to the store at all. They are small, soft, faintly sweet from allspice and nutmeg, and they arrive swimming in a pale brown cream gravy that is nothing like American brown gravy. This version of IKEA Swedish meatballs browns them in a skillet, finishes them in the oven and builds the sauce in the same pan.

The gravy is where most copycats miss. IKEA’s is thickened with a butter and flour roux, loosened with two different stocks and softened with cream, and it carries a savory backbone from soy sauce and a little Dijon. Leave those two out of IKEA Swedish meatballs and you get something pale and milky. Put them in and you get the taste people drive across town for.

What Makes IKEA Swedish Meatballs Different

An Italian meatball is seasoned with garlic, oregano and parmesan, simmered in tomato and served over pasta. IKEA Swedish meatballs go somewhere else entirely. The seasoning is warm rather than herbal, built on white pepper, allspice and a grating of nutmeg, and there is no tomato anywhere near it.

Size matters too. These are small, roughly golf ball or a little under, because the plate is meant to hold eight or ten of them rather than three. Small meatballs also brown proportionally more, and browning is where most of the flavor in IKEA Swedish meatballs comes from.

The sauce is a third difference, and the biggest one. Swedish cream gravy is built like a French veloute, roux first and liquid second, so it is smooth and pale rather than dark and glossy. It is poured over the plate rather than simmered around the meat for an hour.

The last difference is the panade. Breadcrumbs soaked in milk go into the mixture, which keeps the meat loose and tender as it cooks. Skip that and you get a firm, springy ball that bounces off the fork. IKEA Swedish meatballs should give way when you press them.

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Ingredient Notes

• Ground beef and ground pork. Three quarters of a pound of beef to half a pound of pork. The pork brings fat and softness, the beef brings flavor, and IKEA Swedish meatballs made with beef alone come out drier and firmer. Ask the counter for a mix if your store sells one.
• Breadcrumbs and milk. Half a cup of plain crumbs and six tablespoons of whole milk, stirred together and left to sit for five minutes before the meat goes in. This is the single most important step for texture.
• Onion and garlic. One small onion, diced as finely as you can manage, and one clove of garlic. Large pieces of onion break the meatball apart from the inside as they shrink and steam.
• Allspice and nutmeg. A quarter teaspoon of each. This is the flavor people recognize without being able to name it. Ground allspice, not whole berries, and grate the nutmeg fresh if you have a whole one.
• Vegetable stock and beef stock. One cup and three quarters of a cup respectively. Two stocks rather than one keeps the gravy from tasting like a beef reduction; the vegetable stock lightens it in a way water cannot.
• Heavy cream, soy sauce and Dijon. Half a cup of cream, one tablespoon of soy sauce and one teaspoon of Dijon. The soy sauce supplies salt and depth without darkening the sauce much, and the mustard sharpens the whole thing. Neither is detectable as itself in the finished gravy.

The Cream Gravy, Step by Step

The gravy takes about eight minutes and it is the half of IKEA Swedish meatballs that people get wrong. Melt three tablespoons of butter in the skillet you browned the meatballs in, over medium heat, and scrape at the browned bits as it melts. Those bits are free flavor.

Sprinkle in three tablespoons of flour and whisk constantly for two full minutes. You want the raw flour smell to go and a faint nuttiness to come up, but no color beyond pale gold. A roux that browns turns the gravy grainy and tastes toasted rather than creamy.

Then add the liquid slowly. Pour in the vegetable stock in three or four additions, whisking each one smooth before the next goes in, then the beef stock, then the cream. Adding it all at once is how you get lumps. Stir in the soy sauce and Dijon at the end and simmer for four or five minutes until it coats the back of a spoon.

How To Make IKEA Swedish Meatballs

First, soak the crumbs. Stir the breadcrumbs into the milk in a large bowl and leave them for five minutes while you dice the onion. The crumbs should be wet all the way through and starting to fall apart.

Next, mix the meat. Add the beef, pork, onion, garlic, egg, salt, pepper, allspice and nutmeg, and fold everything together with a spatula until it is uniform. Use a light hand. Compacted meat bakes up tight, and the whole point of IKEA Swedish meatballs is that they give way under a fork.

Then roll and chill. Shape the mixture into about twenty-four small meatballs, arrange them on a plate and refrigerate for at least twenty minutes if you have the time. Cold meatballs hold their shape in the pan instead of slumping.

Browning, Baking and Saucing

After that, brown and bake. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a cast iron skillet over medium heat and brown the meatballs in batches, turning them so they color on several sides. They do not need to cook through. Move them to an oven dish and bake at 350 degrees for twenty minutes while you make the gravy.

Finally, bring it together. Build the gravy in the same skillet, then return the baked meatballs to the pan and turn them gently in the sauce until every one is coated. Serve the IKEA Swedish meatballs straight from the skillet with mashed potato and lingonberry jam.

How To Tell When They Are Done

Ground beef and pork mixtures are safe at 160 degrees, and the National Pork Board keeps a clear reference for pork cooking temperatures if you want to check the numbers for ground and whole cuts. Push an instant-read thermometer into the middle of the largest meatball rather than guessing.

Without a thermometer, cut one open. The interior should be an even gray-brown with no pink at the middle, and the juices should run clear. A meatball that is still rosy in the middle needs another five minutes in the oven.

The gravy has its own test. Drag a spoon through it and the line should hold for a second before closing. If it closes instantly, simmer another two minutes; if it holds forever, whisk in a splash more stock.

One more marker, and it is the one restaurant kitchens use. Lift a meatball out on a spoon and the gravy should cling to it in a thin, even coat rather than sliding straight off into the pan. That is the consistency that survives the walk from stove to table, because a sauce always loosens slightly as it hits hot potato.

Make It Ahead

The mixture can be made, rolled and refrigerated a full day before you cook it, covered on a tray. In fact the chill improves them, because the fat firms up and the meatballs hold their shape better in the pan.

The gravy can also be made ahead and refrigerated for two days. It thickens hard in the fridge and looks alarming, but a splash of stock and two minutes over low heat brings it straight back. Keep the sauce and the meatballs separate until you are ready to serve, because meatballs sitting in gravy overnight absorb it and go soft.

Storing IKEA Swedish Meatballs

Cooked IKEA Swedish meatballs and their gravy keep together in a sealed container for three to four days. Reheat them gently on the stovetop over low heat with a splash of cream or stock stirred in, because the sauce tightens as it sits. A microwave works but tends to split the cream.

For the freezer you have two options and the raw one is better. Freeze the rolled, uncooked meatballs on a tray until solid, then bag them for up to three months; brown them from frozen with an extra couple of minutes in the pan and add five minutes in the oven.

Cooked meatballs freeze too, ideally without the gravy, for up to three months. Cream sauces can separate on thawing, so make the gravy fresh on the day if you can. It takes eight minutes and it is the part that makes IKEA Swedish meatballs taste like the real thing.

Variations and Substitutions

All beef. Use a pound and a quarter of ground beef and add an extra tablespoon of cream to the mixture. Slightly firmer, still very good.

Chicken or turkey. Ground chicken thigh works well. Ground breast is too lean and needs a tablespoon of oil in the mixture to stay tender.

Gluten-free. Gluten-free breadcrumbs in the meatballs and a cornstarch slurry instead of the roux in the gravy. Whisk two teaspoons of cornstarch into cold stock before it goes in the pan.

Dairy-free. Oat milk for the panade and full-fat coconut milk in place of the cream. The coconut is faint and the soy sauce covers it.

Extra savory. A teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce alongside the soy, or a tablespoon of lingonberry jam stirred into the gravy for the sweet and sour version some Swedish kitchens make.

Baked from raw. Skip the skillet entirely and bake the rolled meatballs on a lined sheet at 400 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. You lose some of the browning, and you gain a completely hands-off batch and one less pan to wash.

What to Serve with IKEA Swedish Meatballs

Mashed potato is not negotiable if you want IKEA Swedish meatballs to taste like the cafeteria plate. A bowl of creamy mashed potatoes catches the gravy the way nothing else does, and truffle mashed potatoes turn the same plate into something you would serve guests.

Lingonberry jam is the other half of the tradition, and cranberry sauce is a perfectly good stand-in if your store does not carry it. The sharp fruit against the cream gravy is the contrast that makes the plate work, and skipping it flattens the whole thing.

Egg noodles and buttered rice both work if potatoes feel like too much effort. On the side, quick-pickled cucumber is the traditional Swedish partner, and steamed green beans or a plain green salad do the job if you want something fresher. For a different meatball night entirely, cranberry meatballs lean into the sweet and tart pairing from the other direction.

IKEA Swedish Meatballs FAQ

More Questions About Swedish Meatballs

If a skillet of something creamy over potatoes is the kind of dinner you want twice a week, a Lipton onion soup meatloaf covers the same ground with even less work.