The creamy sauce makes these meatballs next level, but did you know that apparently (according to the internet anyway) Swedish people traditionally did not eat their meatballs with meatball sauce!??! Now, thanks to Ikea, everyone thinks Swedish meatballs come with a creamy brown sauce and to be honest, even the meatballs we had in Sweden did. The sauce is almost the best part?!

Swedish meatball sauce is super simple, a butter and flour roux with beef stock and cream, finished off with a tiny bit of soy sauce for color and a touch of umami. I got the soy sauce trick from all the Swedish youtube cooking shows we watched. It’s a sauce game changer.
Ingredients
Onions – the finer you dice your onions, the more uniform and pretty your meatballs will be. If you have a food processor, feel free to pop them in and give them a whirl.
Eggs – eggs are the binder that help keep the meatballs together.
Panko – I like using panko as the breadcrumbs because panko is larger and flakier than regular breadcrumbs. Meatballs made with panko are lighter than meatballs made with regular breadcrumbs.
Nutmeg – there’s just a tiny hint of nutmeg in these guys. They give the meatballs an authentic Swedish flavor with just a background hint of warmth.

Tonkatsu, for the uninitiated, is panko-crusted, deep fried pork cutlet. It’s crispy, crunchy, juicy and so, so delicious. Tonkatsu is basically a Japanese take on schnitzel. It’s typically served with fluffy white rice, piles and piles of finely shredded cabbage, pickles, and miso soup. Usually, you pick between rosu-katsu (loin) or hire-katsu (filet). Rosu is juicier and has more marbling whereas hire is a bit more lean. It’s funny, because when you look at a tonkatsu menu, you might think that everything looks the same (a la that scene in Lost in Translation), but really all the cuts taste different. Really though, you can’t go wrong with crispy juicy deep fried pork and addictive tonkatsu sauce. And ooh, don’t get me started on the sesame seeds – they give you a little mortar and pestle for you to grind your own sesame seeds to add to the sauce. Heaven. There are a ton of tonkatsu specialty houses (Maisen, Butagumi, Kimukatsu, Tonki), but we like visiting the Wako in Mark City.

Tonkatsu, for the uninitiated, is panko-crusted, deep fried pork cutlet. It’s crispy, crunchy, juicy and so, so delicious. Tonkatsu is basically a Japanese take on schnitzel. It’s typically served with fluffy white rice, piles and piles of finely shredded cabbage, pickles, and miso soup. Usually, you pick between rosu-katsu (loin) or hire-katsu (filet). Rosu is juicier and has more marbling whereas hire is a bit more lean. It’s funny, because when you look at a tonkatsu menu, you might think that everything looks the same (a la that scene in Lost in Translation), but really all the cuts taste different. Really though, you can’t go wrong with crispy juicy deep fried pork and addictive tonkatsu sauce. And ooh, don’t get me started on the sesame seeds – they give you a little mortar and pestle for you to grind your own sesame seeds to add to the sauce. Heaven. There are a ton of tonkatsu specialty houses (Maisen, Butagumi, Kimukatsu, Tonki), but we like visiting the Wako in Mark City.

The creamy sauce makes these meatballs next level, but did you know that apparently (according to the internet anyway) Swedish people traditionally did not eat their meatballs with meatball sauce!??! Now, thanks to Ikea, everyone thinks Swedish meatballs come with a creamy brown sauce and to be honest, even the meatballs we had in Sweden did. The sauce is almost the best part?!

Swedish meatball sauce is super simple, a butter and flour roux with beef stock and cream, finished off with a tiny bit of soy sauce for color and a touch of umami. I got the soy sauce trick from all the Swedish youtube cooking shows we watched. It’s a sauce game changer.
Ingredients
Onions – the finer you dice your onions, the more uniform and pretty your meatballs will be. If you have a food processor, feel free to pop them in and give them a whirl.
Eggs – eggs are the binder that help keep the meatballs together.
Panko – I like using panko as the breadcrumbs because panko is larger and flakier than regular breadcrumbs. Meatballs made with panko are lighter than meatballs made with regular breadcrumbs.
Nutmeg – there’s just a tiny hint of nutmeg in these guys. They give the meatballs an authentic Swedish flavor with just a background hint of warmth.