IKEA shares recipe for its famous meat balls to make at home (2024)

FAQs

What were IKEA meatballs made of? ›

Combine beef and pork mince until all lumps are smoothed. Add finely chopped onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg and mix. Then add milk and salt and pepper to taste. Grab small handfuls and roll into a ball shape.

There is probably no other dish that is so connected to Swedish cuisine, as meatballs with cream sauce and lingonberry jam.

For almost 40 years we've been serving up our own very own version of the classic Swedish meatball to hungry IKEA shoppers. Over the years our iconic balls have evolved, but one thing that's never changed is their delicious taste.

The sauce for Swedish Meatballs is a creamy gravy that is made with butter, beef broth/stock, thickened with flour and made creamy with cream. But the most important flavour for the a really good creamy gravy is the pan drippings after searing the meatballs.

If the meatballs are so delicious and so popular, why are they so inexpensive? Like many other things in business, selling inexpensive meatballs is a strategy for the company to turn more profit. To sell their products, they need to get people in the door. To do that, they entice people with cheap meatballs.

But we do know that Swedish meatballs. are commonly served with lingenberry jam. And that if you can't find it, good old fashioned cranberry sauce. makes for an acceptable substitute.

Iconic Swedish cream sauce: Melt 40g of butter in a pan. Whisk in 40g of plain flour and stir for 2 mins. Add 300ml of bouillon (or consommé) and continue to stir. Add 150ml double cream, 2 tsp of soy sauce and 1 tsp of (Dijon) mustard.

About the Ikea recipe. The meatball ingredients are pretty standard. They include ground beef, ground pork, onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg, milk, salt and pepper.

The Czech State Veterinary Administration said it tested two batches of Ikea meatballs and only one of them contained horsemeat.

Smörgåsbord The Original Swedish Meatballs 400g | Sainsbury's.

What makes Swedish meatballs different from regular meatballs? ›

While both varieties include ingredients such as grated onion and panade (milk-soaked bread) or bread crumbs, plus the usual salt and pepper, Swedish meatballs traditionally use spices like allspice, nutmeg, white pepper, and sometimes ground ginger as flavoring.

ANSWER: Usually when meatballs fall apart, it's the binder that is the problem. Most meatball recipes call for using bread crumbs and eggs. But too much bread crumbs make them too loose, and not enough bread crumbs won't help them hold together either.

Italian Meatballs vs Swedish Meatballs: Swedish Meatballs are typically smaller in size than Italian meatballs and they are usually made with a 50-50 ratio of ground pork and ground beef.

Ground lamb may also be a good substitute. It has a bit more fat than veal does, which would come closer to pork (though it may change the flavor a bit, adjust seasoning as needed). Alternatively, a fattier type of ground beef should work good (like ground beef chuck which is around 80% lean habitually).

On February 25, Czech inspectors said they had found horse DNA in meatballs made in Sweden for Ikea while testing samples collected at the company's branch in the city of Brno. The meatballs were labeled as containing beef and pork.

The latest discovery was made by the Swedish furniture giant IKEA. Inspectors in the Czech Republic said Monday they found traces of horse meat in frozen meatballs made in Sweden for the furniture maker.

They're famous – and one of the brand's most prized assets. But some of the romantic Swedishness of the meatballs, which are served with mash, light gravy and lingonberry jam, has been forever lost. Ikea's iconic meatballs originated in what is now modern day Turkey.

STOCKHOLM - Swedish furniture giant Ikea became entangled in Europe's widening meat scandal Monday, forced to withdraw meatballs from stores across Europe amid suspicions that they contained horse meat. Stores in the U.S. and Canada were not affected, Ikea said.