Skillet Swedish Meatballs
In this easy recipe for skillet Swedish meatballs, tender meatballs are smothered in a delicious, thick gravy. Serve over rice, noodles or potatoes!
I’ve been making this recipe for over a decade, and it is easily in my family’s top 10 favorite meals ever! It is so incredibly yummy!
Swedish Meatball Variations
There are many variations of Swedish meatball recipes out there on the interwebs. Some use ground pork or ground beef or a combination. Oftentimes, nutmeg or allspice are added while other recipes don’t use those spices at all. And the sauces are as varied as the meatballs! Thin or thick, creamy or dark.
My recipe for Swedish meatballs results in the most flavorful, tender meatballs swimming in a delectable, thick, rich brown gravy. THEY ARE SO GOOD.
The meatball mixture is a simple combination of ingredients:
- ground beef or ground pork (or a combination – even ground turkey works well)
- bread crumbs
- grated onion
- a hint of brown sugar, allspice and nutmeg
- egg
- milk
- salt and pepper
Skillet Cooked Meatballs
The meatballs and sauce are made in one skillet. You can use a 12-inch nonstick or cast iron skillet. But, I find that most often, I make this recipe in my trusty electric skillet {aff. link}.
It is big enough to cook all of the meatballs in a single layer in one batch. 🙌🏼 I literally keep this skillet around almost exclusively for this recipe. (Well, this one and ham fried rice.)
Here’s the process for whipping up these Swedish meatballs:
- Make the meatballs.
- Brown the meatballs in a skillet and remove to a plate.
- Make a simple roux and whisk in broth to make the base of the sauce.
- Add the meatballs back in and simmer until the meatballs are cooked through and the sauce has thickened.
- Stir in sour cream.
How to Serve Traditional Swedish Meatballs
Traditionally, Swedish meatballs are served with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam, and often pickled cucumbers, as well.
The jam and cucumbers may sound like an odd combination, but the tangy, fresh flavors of both balance the richness of the meatballs, gravy and potatoes. It’s a winning combination!
However (Swedish meatball purists, look aside)…
I rarely have lingonberry jam and cucumbers hanging around together. So, in our household, we often enjoy this meal in a more simple manner: meatballs, sauce, potatoes, and a simple green veggie.
Applicable Life Lesson: don’t put off making this crazy good meal if a few of the more traditional components aren’t available. It can be enjoyed many different ways!
A Huge Favorite
This skillet Swedish meatballs recipe is one of our go-to Sunday meals when I have a bit more time to cook dinner, and, many of my kids have requested it as their birthday dinner over the years.
That’s high praise considering we take our birthday meal requests very seriously. 😉
This recipe is a definite tried-and-true favorite. We’ve been loving it for over 10 years! And I have no doubt it will be made for generations to come.
Be sure to read through the recipe and comments for additional tips and insights!
A Few Other Rave Reviews
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Wow! These are delicious! So flavorful! My mom is Swedish so I can attest that these pass the test! Adding this to my favorite recipes. Thanks Mel! I feel like every recipe I try from you is a winner! -Tammy
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ These are the most requested meal from my kids currently. I sub the sour cream with double cream yoghurt (just because I always have it in the fridge) and it works great. Yummy with spaetzle!!! -Lauren
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I have made this recipe many, many times. It is an all-time family favorite. I usually have to double it so that we will have leftovers. -Kelley
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thank you thank you thank you. This was the first win I have had in weeks with my teen son. He loved this dish, well everyone did including me as it was delicious and easy. -Jeri
What to Serve With This
Skillet Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 ½ pounds ground pork, ground beef or ground turkey (see note)
- 1 large egg
- ¼ cup milk
- ⅓ cup bread crumbs (see note)
- ¼ cup finely minced or grated onion
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg (see note)
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice (see note)
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1-2 tablespoons oil for cooking
Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 3 cups low-sodium beef broth
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- ½ cup sour cream
- Chopped fresh parsley or dried parsley
- Cooked egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or rice, for serving
Instructions
- For the meatballs, in a large bowl, combine all the meatball ingredients except for the oil and mix until evenly combined.
- Scoop the meat mixture into meatballs about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
- Heat the oil in a 12-inch, nonstick skillet or electric skillet over medium heat until hot and rippling.
- Add the meatballs to the pan in a single layer an inch or so apart. You may need to cook in batches, depending on the size of your pan. (*See note for oven-baked method.)
- Brown the meatballs on all sides. They'll finish cooking in a later step. Remove the meatballs to a pan or plate. Repeat with remaining meatballs adding a bit more oil to the skillet, if needed. Remove them from the skillet once browned.
- For the sauce, return the skillet to medium heat and add 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil. If the skillet was mostly dry before adding the butter and oil, you may want to add another tablespoon or two of either butter or oil so the sauce isn't lumpy. Heat until melted. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 1-2 minutes.
- Slowly add the broth, just 1/2 cup at a time, whisking quickly to remove any lumps. Let each addition of broth cook until thick and smooth before adding the next bit. Once you've added about 2 cups, add the remaining broth and whisk until combined.
- Stir in the brown sugar and bring the sauce to a simmer, whisking constantly.
- Add the meatballs back to the skillet and cook 10 to 12 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through, turning them once or twice while cooking.
- Off the heat, stir in the sour cream to the sauce (just whisk it in around the meatballs). To help it blend in easier, you can ladle out a bit of the warm sauce into a bowl and whisk the sour cream in before adding it all back in to the skillet.
- Garnish with fresh or dried parsley and serve over hot, cooked egg noodles, potatoes, or rice.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe (inspired by a couple recipes online – Cook’s Illustrated and Damn Delicious – with lots of my own changes both with ingredients and method to simplify the process and also cut down on butter/oil for the sauce.
Recipe originally published April 2015; updated March 2025 with new photos, recipe notes, etc
Made this with pork and turkey. I doubled the recipe, and it was SOOOOOO good! I could drink the sauce! My kids all loved them and were happy to hear that we had some left for leftovers. Thank you for another “Rock Star” meal!!!!
Birthday dinner request for my new 15 year old did not disappoint!! I was so glad I made a 1.5x batch..everyone was just as happy to eat the leftovers later in the week! Thanks for keeping our family full of yummy food. You are much appreciated and revered in our home!
Happy birthday to your 15-year old! So glad you guys loved this one, Ashley – thanks for letting me know!
Delicious! I didn’t have any sour cream, so I blended cottage cheese with my immersion blender and the results were great!
I made these last night (a double batch) and it was a hit!! Like your pic, I served with mashed potatoes (the IP ones from your site) and green peas. Perfection!! Wouldn’t change a thing in terms of the flavor and the gravy.
Just a note: I used pre-packaged ground beef from Sam’s club–the grass fed kind that is packaged into those plastic squares. I find that it is full of much more moisture than the kind packaged on a styrofoam tray at the grocery store. I did compensate with extra bread crumbs because of the moisture in the meat. I really think it’s ideal to use fresh ground meat from the grocery store when making meatballs– there is definitely a difference in texture and how the meat operates. But I used what I had and adapted as needed. Just worth noting for anyone else using something similar. Hope that makes sense.
This is so fantastic! My whole family loves it. I have been looking for the perfect sauce for meatballs for years that doesn’t use cream of mushroom condensed soup! This is it! So fast to make and so delicious!
This is now a staple on our house.
I’d really love to make these but quit making meatballs several years ago as I tend to overcook them and then they don’t taste good! Do you use a cookie scoop for these or just eyeball their size?Do you have an idea how many grams a 1.5 diameter meatball weighs? I think I’d rather go by weight just to make sure they’re all the same.
I usually use a cookie scoop because it makes it so easy (and the meatballs end up being the same relative size). I haven’t weighed each meatball, sorry…but you could form one meatball about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter and weigh it and then you’ll have a metric for the rest of them.
I have a similar recipe as these and sometimes I will thin out some cranberry sauce and use that as the sauce and serve them over mashed potatoes, a lovely variation ☺️
Made this tonight with 85/15 ground turkey and served it on extra-wide egg noodles. Yum and thank you!
These Swedish meatballs are our family’s favorite!! SO GOOD! For my GF guests I’ve used GF flour and they turn out great. We used to serve them over boiled potatoes but now mashed potatoes with peas on the side. Just YUM!
How do you get your meatballs to be round and to stay together? Is that just a decade of practice? I’m on a budget, so I get ground meat in the tubes, which I know you’ve said doesn’t work as well, but if that’s my only option would I just need to up whatever part of the recipe is meant to soak up liquid? I’ve done the oven method, but the moment I add them to the sauce and give them a quick stir they fall apart. The flavors here are amazing, though!
Hi Heather, it’s likely due to the type of ground beef. If you’re using the kind in the tube (which tends to fall apart a bit more), try increasing the bread crumbs in the recipe and possibly the egg, too (maybe decrease the milk). That should help!
Your recipe is very close to how I’ve been making Swedish Meatballs for many years. We love them, also! Just this past year or so, I’ve been making them the same way, but in a burger shape, instead, which has worked out really well! I often make a bunch of them, simmering them in unsalted beef broth to finish cooking them, then removing them from the pan, and using a roux to make the gravy, only putting the ones we’ll be eating that night back into the gravy. The rest I freeze, and then make a gravy with beef broth for those when we’re going to eat the rest. It makes it very convenient for quick meals later, which I either serve with mashed potatoes again, or with jasmine rice, sometimes. Whether as meatballs or burgers, it’s definitely one of our favorite meal too!
I am wondering if anyone has used bagged frozen meatballs instead? Just to make it a quicker evening night meal. And also used a crockpot for it? Would love to hear how it turned out! Thanks!
I used bagged Swedish meatballs! Over if the few premade foods i buy but now I have seen this maybe I won’t be able to justify them anymore. I haven’t used the crockpot since they cook so fast.
My husband and I both loved this recipe. I made it with 1 lb gr. turkey and 1/2 lb. gr chuck/gr. round blend. I served it over homemade mashed potatoes which was delicious, but I would love to make it again with the extra T. of flour next time to make the sauce thicker and serve it over egg noodles. I made roasted green beans in the oven as a side dish and it all was wonderful together.
Made a double batch in a large electric frypan (I believe it’s about 9×13 with 2ish” sides) and everyone ate them up. I used 2 lbs beef 1 lb pork because it’s what I had, but can definitely see how these would have a light delicious flavor with ground turkey (I often used ground turkey in my meatloaf). This will definitely go into our rotation, love that it only took about 30 minutes to get on the table.
Mel, I’ve scoured the comments to see if anyone said anything about baking the meatballs instead of browning in oil but couldn’t find anything. Do you have an idea about temperature and time if I want to do it that way?
Hi Vicky, you can totally do that. I’d suggest placing them on a foil-lined baking sheet and baking at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or so.
Wow! These are delicious! So flavorful! My mom is Swedish so I can attest that these pass the test! Adding this to my favorite recipes. Thanks Mel! I feel like every recipe I try from you is a winner!
Yay, Tammy! Thank you so much!
Delish
Made this tonight for our family and it’s delicious. Some of us are celiac, so I subbed gf where needed and it turned out great. My daughter loved helping roll the meatballs and cooking with me. Thank you for the quick weeknight dinner!
This recipe was a hit! While it was cooking, everyone asked what I was making because it “smells so good”. I thought the nutmeg and/or allspice was a bit strong, so I might decrease that a bit next time, but otherwise it was perfectly delicious and so easy to make.
Tasted just like IKEA meatballs! I actually used an IKEA sauce packet since I had one on hand and just baked the meatballs in the oven.
I keep coming back to this recipe. It’s always a success!
Tender and moist, with an unusual but delicious flavor. Everyone loved these – this will be our new go-to recipe for meatballs.
These are the most requested meal from my kids currently. I sub the sour cream with double cream yoghurt (just because I always have it in the fridge) and it works great.
Yummy with spaetzle!!!
These are my favorite meatballs, ever! My favorite adjustments are 1 lbs lean Turkey with 1/2 lb lean ground beef. Half and half with chicken and beef broth. And lately I’ve been subbing out half the sour cream with non fat Greek yogurt simply to cut back on calories.. so I can eat more and more of it because it’s my favorite. I also double the meatballs and freeze half uncooked for an easy meal later. I just thaw them overnight in the fridge and proceed with the recipe. It’s super easy to double and saves me so much time later.
Hate to admit it, but I like these better than my MIL’s. We were out of sour cream, but heavy cream worked just fine. Perfect over mashed potatoes!
Thank you for saying something about the sour cream. I am out and wondered what to substitute! But I do have cream!
Yum
So yummy!!
My kids absolutely loved this. It’s perfect to make a double batch and take some to a family with a new baby or the like. I thought adding 1-2 tsp of lemon juice at the end really made the sauce sing.
Wondering if this could be converted to a crock pot meatball recipe???
I always come back to this recipe. My kids absolutely love it and so do I. It’s easy to make and so delicious.
Thank you!
I have made these a few times loved them each time. Tonight I used leftover bacon grease from Thanksgiving and added leftover gravy to the sauce, then served them over leftover mashed potatoes. Delicious way to mix it up a bit using Thanksgiving leftovers!! Looking forward to having it for lunch tomorrow:-}
Yum! That sounds amazing!
I have made this recipe many, many times. It is an all-time family favorite. I usually have to double it so that we will have leftovers. I typically make it with a mixture of ground beef and ground turkey. Today’s recipe has 2 pounds beef and 1.7 pounds of turkey. I’m trying to decide if I will make the full batch today for leftovers in a couple of days or attempt freezing half of it for once our fall becomes truly crazy.
Delicious… using the ground turkey was a great improvement over ground beef/pork…won’t go back to the old recipe! Thanks, Mel
Super yummy! I’ve made this twice now, but I’ve got to say, I think your timing is a bit off, either that or you are a time manipulator. It takes me about an hour and 20 minutes from start to finish. Just grating that onion takes forever.
Aside from that, it’s perfect!