Low-Carb Swedish Meatballs
Flavorful meatballs in a creamy rich gravy, Low-Carb Swedish Meatballs can even be made gluten free and keto. Serve plain or over noodles or cauliflower.
We like to vacation in a Wisconsin resort area that’s often called “the Cape Cod of the Midwest.” Triangularly shaped and bordered on two sides by water, it attracted a lot of Scandinavian settlers a century back.
Which means that, at any cocktail party, you can be sure you’ll find Swedish Meatballs. Yum!
A tasty bite!
I had never made them myself, so when my Sunday blogging group decided to make meatballs, I knew just what I was going to do. Happily for my keto diet, they are naturally low carb!
This recipe again used a popular keto hack—swapping crushed pork rinds for breadcrumbs. It worked in my Scotch Eggs and equally well here. Otherwise you can just grate a fresh piece of bread.
Mmm!
The other concession I made was serving my meatballs over roasted cauliflower while the rest of the family had noodles. But as good and easy as that cauliflower is, I may stick with this. Post-keto even!
Low-Carb Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 white onion medium, very finely diced
- 1 lb ground beef or use half ground pork
- 1/2-1 cup pork rinds 1/4 cup crushed or 1 slice fresh bread, grated
- 2 Tablespoons fresh parsley or 1 T dried parsley
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- 2-3 Tablespoons oil for frying
Sauce:
- 1 1/4 cups beef broth
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum or 2 T flour
Instructions
- Combine the meatball ingredients except frying oil in a
large bowl. Mix thoroughly with your hands and form into 1-inch meatballs.
Heat oil in your skillet over medium heat and cook the
meatballs, turning to brown on all sides. When cooked through, transfer to a
plate and keep warm.- Melt the cream cheese and mustard in the pan, then add in 1
cup of broth slowly, deglazing the pan as needed. Make a thickener slurry by
mixing the xanthan gum (or flour) with the remaining ¼ cup broth. Gradually add this to the sauce whisking and simmering, until it reaches the desired thickness. A flour mixture will need to simmer to thicken, but xanthan gum will thicken just by mixing in. - Add the meatballs back into the skillet, simmer for a couple more minutes. Serve over noodles (or roasted cauliflower for keto)
Nutrition
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I am a total sucker for Swedish meatballs. The cauliflower steak looks awesome and great way to serve the meatballs low carb.
When I rad “low carb” my first thought was, aren’t they already low carb?? So yes, you say, they are. Whew — thought I was going crazy! Love Swedish meatballs… and will try these though may not use pork rinds. Seems an unhealthy switch just to avoid a few bread crumbs.
The keto carb restrictions are so low that you can barely get in a fruit and three servings of vegetables. Which is why I’m so miserly I won’t use 1/4 cup of bread crumbs!
I have to remember to use pork rinds the next time I need a low carb binder. I am sure they add wonderful flavor to dishes like this.
Swedish meatballs is the one I haven’t tried making yet! Saving your recipe!
I’m feeling better about this being my first time making them now!
Pork rinds sound like a great addition!
I was so happy to have a keto-friendly option!
Oh Inger, these meatballs look amazingly delicious, I like the combination of half beef and half pork. The sauce you share here looks so good…thanks for sharing the recipe.
Have a wonderful week!
And the half beef/half pork combo is a perfect excuse to double the recipe which I think I’ll do next time.
If you can believe it I’ve never made Swedish meatballs before but they look so easy to make! Can’t wait to give them a try!
I can totally believe you’ve never made them, since I hadn’t even with them all around me. Hope you get a chance to try them!
I like the idea of the roast cauliflower rather than noodles 🙂
I think I’ll be ricing cauliflower too before this is over!
This looks great, Inger! I keep seeing recipes that call for pork rinds, but when I look at them in the store, I just can’t buy them. They look gross to me. But I know people love them and eat them right out of the bag! Can you taste them in the meatballs? Does it change the flavor?
Once you crunch the pork rinds up they look really a lot like panko bread crumbs. Maybe that will help you get through using them? You can’t taste them in the meatballs, they really just serve as a binder.