Swedish Meatball Gravy
Gräddsås, the pale creamy beef gravy for köttbullar, made with a blonde roux, stock and plenty of double cream, darkened only slightly with soy.
- Contains meat
- swedish
- cream
- meatballs
- quick
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Total
- 20 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Swedish cream sauce is much lighter in colour than most gravies and that is deliberate. It should be the shade of milky coffee, silky rather than thick, and just savoury enough to stand up to the sweetness of the lingonberry jam served alongside. It comes together in about fifteen minutes, and it is far better made in the pan the meatballs were fried in.
Ingredients
Makes about 450ml, enough for four
Scaled amounts are rounded to something you can actually measure. Season at the end and trust your mouth over the maths.
Kit
- Frying pan
- Whisk
Method
Melt the butter in the frying pan over a medium low heat, or use the fat left behind after frying meatballs, scraping up anything stuck to the base.
Whisk in the flour and cook for two to three minutes, stirring constantly. Keep it blonde. This sauce is meant to be pale, so pull it off the moment it smells biscuity and before it takes any real colour.
Pour in the hot stock a third at a time, whisking hard between each addition. It will go thick and pasty after the first splash and then loosen out as you keep going.
Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for five minutes, whisking now and then, until smooth and thickened. Any raw flour taste should be gone by this point.
Stir in the cream, soy sauce, mustard and allspice if using. Bring back to the barest simmer and cook for three or four minutes until it coats the back of a spoon and leaves a clean trail when you draw a finger through it.
Season with salt and white pepper. It should taste rounded and buttery with just enough savoury edge, and it should be pourable rather than gluey.
Serve over meatballs with mashed potato, a spoonful of lingonberry jam on the side and quick pickled cucumber if you have it.
Tips worth knowing
- White pepper is the traditional choice and it matters visually as well as in flavour. Black pepper speckles a sauce that is supposed to be smooth and pale.
- If the sauce goes too thick, loosen it with milk rather than more stock, which keeps the creaminess without adding more salt.
- The lingonberry is part of the dish, not a garnish. That sharp sweetness against a creamy savoury sauce is the whole point, so do not skip it.
- Fry the meatballs first and build the sauce in the same unwashed pan. The browned residue is worth more than any stock cube.
Change it up
- Add 2 tbsp of the lingonberry jam directly into the sauce at the end for a sweeter, pinker gravy that some Swedish families prefer.
- Use half beef and half veal or chicken stock for a lighter sauce that suits pork meatballs.
- Stir in a tablespoon of finely chopped dill off the heat for a fresher version that also works with poached salmon.
Keeping and reheating
Three days in the fridge. It thickens considerably when cold, so reheat gently with a splash of milk and whisk it smooth. Freezing is not ideal because the cream can go grainy, but it is recoverable with a hard whisk while reheating.
Questions people ask
What is the sauce on Swedish meatballs made of?
A butter and flour roux, beef stock and cream, seasoned with a little soy sauce and often mustard and allspice. Some versions use half single cream and half milk to keep it lighter. It is called gräddsås, which just means cream sauce.
Why is my Swedish meatball sauce too thin?
Either the roux was underweight for the liquid or it did not simmer long enough. Simmer it a few minutes more, or mash a teaspoon of soft butter with a teaspoon of flour and whisk that in a little at a time until it thickens.
Can I use single cream instead of double?
Yes, but do not boil it hard, since single cream splits more easily. Use 200ml of single cream in place of the 150ml of double and give it an extra couple of minutes at a bare simmer to thicken.