Recipe for Swedish Meatball Sauce

Recipe for Swedish Meatball Sauce: quick and easy sauce to serve with frozen meatballs for Swedish meatballs without the trip to Ikea.

Swedish meatballs are such a favourite and always a hit with grown ups or kids.  You don’t have to wait until your next trip to Ikea to have them.  Our easy semi-homemade version are quick and delicious, and quite easy to put together.  We used frozen Swedish meatballs from the grocery store freezer section and our recipe for Swedish meatball sauce.  The sauce is a beautifully rich and creamy one and sure to be a hit.

We served our Swedish meatballs as part of our Frozen themed dinner and movie night -you can read all about it here.  They were the perfect Scandinavian food to go with our theme.  This dinner was a real hit with everyone.

Not A Great Slower Cooker Recipe

When I first decided on Swedish meatballs, I wondered about making a slow cooker version.  Sometimes it’s great to know that dinner is cooking itself in the slow cooker, especially on a busy day.  But my research convinced me that these weren’t a great slow cooker choice, for several reasons.  For one, you would essentially be making the thickened sauce on the stove top and going through all the same steps, but just in advance, to create a thick traditional sauce, and then pouring it into the slow cooker.  So that made the slow cooker version no savings on time.  Some slow cooker Swedish meatball recipes didn’t really thicken the sauce and come out with something far too runny.  The other problem is the high chance of the cream curdling if you add it at the beginning or things not being hot or creamy enough if you add it just at the end before serving.  All these issues convinced me that it’s best to make the sauce on the stove top, right before serving.

Recipe Tips for Swedish Meatball Sauce

The sauce itself has a roux base, which thickens the sauce.  When you are creating the roux you let the roux base brown.  If you don’t let it brown enough at this stage the sauce will be too white, but if you let the roux brown too long it can burn and ruin the sauce, so take care to get it to the right shade of brown.

We served our Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes, but pasta would make a great side to this dish as well.  If you’re being very authentic be sure to serve it with lingonberry sauce too.

We used frozen meatballs, but you could make your own if you prefer.  The frozen meatballs cook directly from frozen, making this a quite easy dish.  We chose to re-heat our frozen meatballs in the oven, and then add them to our finished sauce in the pan.

Recipe for Swedish Meatball Sauce

Print

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 cups beef stock
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp dijion mustard
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

1. Place frozen meatballs on an oven tray and cook in the oven according to the directions on the package.
2. In a large skillet over medium high heat melt the butter and whisk in the flour to create a roux. Cook the roux until it becomes brown and smells nutty.
3. Add in the beef broth, cream, mustard, and Worchestershire sauce. Bring to a simmer, taking care not to boil it after you add the cream.
4. Add the heated meatballs into the pan, and stir to combine with the sauce. Garnish with chopped parsely and enjoy.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

6

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 257Total Fat: 25gSaturated Fat: 16gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 72mgSodium: 287mgCarbohydrates: 7gFiber: 0gSugar: 2gProtein: 3g

These Swedish meatballs are the perfect creamy and hearty comfort food. 

With this recipe for Swedish meatball sauce that’s so good, life really is a party!