Köttbullar med gräddsås (meatballs with cream sauce) is widely thought of as Sweden’s national dish. Köttbullar are smaller and have a diferent flavour to Italian meatballs and are nearly always served with a cream sauce. The recipe first appeared in a book by the legendary Cajsa Warg, published in 1755, and has been a firm favourite ever since.

The meatballs, Köttbullar, are light, delicate and a real treat. They are best served in the traditional style, with potato purée, sweetened lingonberries and pressed cucumber. With this recipe, we never have to wait to go to IKEA to have Swedish meatballs 🙂 It’s a great recipe and not too difficult to make.

Is this recipe authentic? The short answer is that there isn’t an authentic method. If you asked ten Swedes about making köttbullar you would get ten different answers. They would be similar for sure, but most Swedish cooks will have their own way and so will use a bit more or a bit less of this or that. Nonetheless, I think most Swedes would agree that these meatballs are pretty good.

Opinions about gräddsås (cream sauce) are even more divided. The recipe below is adapted from Vår Kok Bok (Sweden’s most popular cookery book) and is said to strike a good balance, but of course you can tweak it to suit your own preferences and still feel it is genuinely Swedish. Some add more cream, sometimes a lot more cream(!), and some add some white wine vinegar or a tablespoon of redcurrant jelly. Nonetheless, the gräddsås recipe below a good starting point.

Serve them the traditional way or serve them up the fine-dining way with pasta and asparagus. 🙂

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the Meatballs / Köttbullar

4 tbsp fresh white breadcrumbs
4 tbsp milk or water
450 gms minced beef
2 tbsp grated or finely chopped onion
1 egg lightly beaten
2 whole allspice, crushed
Salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

2 tbsp butter, for frying

Cream sauce

300 ml hot water
1/2 to 1 beef stock cube
2 tbsp plain flour or all-purpose flour
100 ml milk or water
1/2 to 1 tsp soy sauce
2-3 tbsp cream

Directions

For the Meatballs / Köttbullar

Put the breadcrumbs in a large bowl and add 4 tablespoons of milk or water. Leave them to absorb the liquid for about 5 minutes.

Add the mince, grated onion, egg, allspice (optional) and seasoning. Mix with your hands or a wooden spoon until evenly mixed. Don’t over mix or the meatballs will be heavy.

Take a tablespoon of mixture and roll it until it is nice and round. (Rinse your hands in cold water if the mixture is too sticky.) Repeat until you have used up all the mixture, by which time you should have between 30 and 40 meatballs.

Heat a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan over medium high heat until the butter stops sizzling. Fry half the meatballs, shaking the pan frequently when you first add them. When they are nicely browned, turn down the heat and cook for a further 10 minutes. Remove the meatballs from the pan and keep warm. Add another tablespoon of butter and fry the remaining meatballs in the same way.

The Sauce / Gräddsås

When the meatballs are cooked, remove the pan from the heat and add the warm water and use it to scrape up all the meaty bits in the pan. Bring it up to the boil and let it simmer for a minute or two. Sieve the mixture into a saucepan, add the stock cube and stir until dissolved.

Mix the flour with the milk or water and stir until dissolved. Pour into the saucepan, whisking continuously as you do so. Simmer the sauce for 5 minutes.

Add the soy sauce and cream. Heat for another couple of minutes, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. (Use a whisk if you like a little foam, as shown above. If you like lots of bubbles, use an immersion blender with the blade half in and half out of the sauce.) Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve the meatballs with rårörda lingon, mashed potatoes, pressed cucumber and a light coating of the sauce. Pour the rest of the cream sauce into a jug for people to help themselves to if they want more.

Julköttbullar

For julköttbullar (Christmas meatballs) the breadcrumbs and milk/water are replaced with grated potato and cream and the onion is finely chopped and lightly fried first.

For a large party

For a large party, julköttbullar are normally cooked in an oven. Add the butter to a large pan and put it in a hot oven at 250°C until the butter is melted and a light brown colour. Add the julköttbullar and cook in the middle of the oven for 8-12 minutes until nicely browned, shaking the pan a few times to ensure that the balls are evenly browned.