Move over, Ikea Swedish meatballs. We’re cooking at home tonight. If you have a hankering for meatballs but don’t want to drive to the cavernous furniture store to get them, try this recipe from the appetizer section of Aldi’s website.
The Recipe:
Ingredients:
For the Meatballs –
Carlini Canola Cooking Spray
1 pound 73% Lean Ground Beef
½ onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ cup Millville Quick Oats
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon Stonemill Essentials Iodized Salt, plus additional to taste
¼ teaspoon Stonemill Essentials Ground Black Pepper, plus additional to taste
For the Sauce –
1 tablespoon Carlini Pure Olive Oil
½ onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Villa Malizia Pinot Grigio
1 cup Chef’s Cupboard Beef Broth
1 tablespoon Baker’s Corner Corn Starch (a seasonal item that may not always be available in stores)
1 tablespoon water
½ cup Friendly Farms Sour Cream
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375°. Coat a baking pan with cooking spray.
- For the meatballs: In a medium bowl, combine the ground beef, onion, garlic, quick oats, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Form 1-inch balls and place on prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165°.
- For the sauce: In a medium saucepan, heat the oil. Add the onion, sauté until soft. Deglaze the pan with wine; cook until wine has reduced. Add beef broth.
- In a small bowl, make a slurry by combining the corn starch and water. Whisk slurry into the broth and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Stir the sour cream into the broth. Season to taste with salt and pepper; add meatballs. Serve warm.
Chef’s Thoughts
These meatballs were excellent. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten Swedish meatballs, so I can’t speak to how authentic they taste, but I can say with confidence that these Aldi Swedish-Style Meatballs are delicious.
I made these without the Pinot Grigio because I didn’t have any on hand (although Aldi does sell it), and they tasted fine.
The only adjustment I recommend making in this recipe is to use less onion. Between the meatballs and the sauce, the recipe calls for a whole onion, and that was too much. The sauce, especially, was too onion-y. The next time I make these, I would use 1/4 of a chopped onion in the meatballs and 1/4 of a chopped onion in the sauce, for a total of 1/2 of an onion for the entire recipe.
Because my family likes to eat these meatballs served over cooked egg noodles, I might double the sauce recipe next time as well so we have a little more sauce to coat both the meatballs and the noodles.
The prep and cook times listed on Aldi’s site for Swedish-Style Meatballs is pretty accurate. The recipe claims to make eight servings. My family got more like six servings, so maybe I made my meatballs too large, or they were so tasty we all ate too much.
The Verdict:
These Swedish-Style Meatballs taste good. They are probably healthier than any Swedish meatballs you can buy in the frozen food section of the grocery store, and if you’re craving meatballs, making them at home saves you a trip to a labyrinthine furniture store. Recommended.
