Ikea is a meatball company that also sells furniture
VW is a sausage company masquerading as a car manufacturer: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_currywurst
I liked them better when they still contained horse meat.
I would 100% eat those. Even more likely to if they officially advertised them as being made from horse.
Horse meat is delicious and idgaf what all the crazy horse girls say
Me too. Quick story time. It was the day before COVID lockdown. My now wife and I had just moved in together the day before and were at IKEA buying furniture for our new apartment. Being at IKEA, knowing the new fridge and freezer at home were empty, and having poor impulse control, I threw three bags of frozen meetballs with sauce and fixings into the cart near checkout.
The following day lockdown was announced with all restaurants to be closed, and stores to enforce limited occupancy with lines down the block waiting to get in. We feasted the first two weeks.
It was all I could do not to buy a couple bags of the meatballs and gravy at the checkout. Something about the flavor, don’t know what it is but I was stuffed after 16 meatballs and STILL wanted to eat more.
Their plant based meatballs are good too. I pan fry them then toss them into a slow cooker with some bachans barbecue sauce, green onion, and sesame seeds for parties and potlucks.
Bachans Japanese BBQ is so good. Getting expensive. But damn it’s delicious.
Then you need to make proper Swedish meatballs. IKEA’s stuff doesn’t compare.
Do you have an authentic recipe? It’s always hard on the web to find out which “true 100% reals straight from grandma” recipes are the right ones.
Niklas Ekstedt’s recipe is authentic, Swedish, and tasty AF. If you can’t find venison, beef will do.
EDIT: I imagine this is one of those things where there are 1,000’s of different “proper” recipes. I shared this one as the guy who wrote it is Swedish, so I thought there must be some authenticity there, and I’ve made it, so can testify that it’s good. Not saying it’s the best or the most authentic, so slightly confused by the commenters saying it’s somehow wrong?
Proper Swedish meatballs are easy to make. Wtf is this fancy stuff? Nah man… Source: I’m Swedish.
Only needs minced meat, bread crumbs, eggs, onion and some spices. Source: am Finnish, we do meatballs too.
Well that just sounds like normal meatballs. What makes Swedish meatballs distinct?
They are the same.
Ikr where’s the frozen meatballs and powder mashed potatoes?!
Also needs more ketchup.
Beeing Swedish I can confirm that a recipe by Ekstedt’s is not only authentic but probably really really good as well. He’s gotten a few Michelin stars over the years.
Juniper berries?
Mate I never touched her berries
Well you took a treasured national meal and linked a recipe more advanced and different than the basic one most Swedes eat/do at home and said this is what meatballs is. That’s set up for comments 😄
I’ve never done mine with juniper berries though. I think you can skip that.
Needs more chopped parsley. Like waaay more parsley. And a tablespoon of mustard
I improved the taste of my version a lot by making my own Piffi Allkrydda mixture fur the sauce. Its a spice mixture that goes really well with the taste of the berries!
Did have them a week back. But IKEA is to Swedish cuisine what Taco bell is to Mexican.
Delicious when high?
Nah but my home made meatballs with proper mashed potatoes, pickled cucumber, lingon rawstir (not jam) with 60% lingon, cream sauce with a kick ( using mango chutney instead of classic black current jelly) with sage and rosemary definitely is. :)
Id chow down on your meatballs, lovesausage.
Ikea really managed to pull off a magnificent marketing stunt.
They have the same furniture quality that you can get off of Amazon, Wayfair, or Walmart but you have to go get it out of their warehouse and deal with the logistics of getting it to your house. But they hand out some meatballs and give everything funky Swedish names; so people get the impression that it’s a fancy European experience.
China is the single largest manufacturer of Ikea products. I found that when I went directly to the source, I could get the same item cheaper or a better item at the same price. That deal is likely to die with the new tariff regime but that same regime will have similar impacts on Ikea.
IKEA started delivering furniture a long time ago, at least in Ontario.
Started in 1950 sometime in Sweden I believe
Their vegetarian hot dogs are worth a try. I only got one because it was cheaper than a standard hot dog, but was surprised how much I loved the taste.
Their veggie dogs (not meat like, just veggies) were surprisingly good! I assumed the regular hot dog would be similarly good but it was hands down the worst hot dog I have had in my life.
Next time I go I promised myself I would try some of the plant meatballs instead.
The plant balls are amazing. Can’t say how they compare as I’ve never had the meat ones, but they’re tasty and savoury and delicious.
Note that there are two similar sounding products. A friend tried the plant balls and enjoyed them, but then bought the bag of vegetables balls to take home and was disappointed
https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/huvudroll-plant-balls-frozen-90508221/
https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/huvudroll-vegetable-balls-frozen-70487795/
They are fucking ugly though which makes the first bite difficult. Good after that.
Do they have lunch there?
They do. The one near me has a whole menu that changes regularly, aside from a few permanent options. Some of the items can be very good.
It’s a whole cafeteria setup with trays and a line with workers dishing out different things. Then you pay at the end of the line.
They haven’t been as nice since they took the horse out.
IKEA breakfasts slap.
Didn’t know they had breakfast!
They got the vegan option too. If you don’t want to think about the poor horse that gave his life for you, go eat vegan stuff. Often times vegan options are just a bridge. There are other ways to eating healthy nutritious foods.
The vegan alternative tastes terrible.
And the meatballs are a blend of beef and pork in most countries. In Muslim places it’s beef with chicken, in Sweden you sometimes get moose variants for special occasions.
Horse is not typically used for meatballs since the meat is too lean, you need fat as a binding agent and to prevent it from drying out.
I disagree - I thought the vegan ones were fine! Cheapest meal out I’d had in a long time. They also had a lots of beds in their restaurant, so I could relax and let my food go down on-site.
The horse joke was a reference to the massive recall a decade ago, when they found horse meat in their balls and sausages.
Also, as a non vegan, I find the veg balls to be as good as their meat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As long as one doesn’t expect it to taste anything like meat…
Their vegan meatballs are also excellent.
Homemade
This photo has so little colour it’s almost monochrome.
I’ve made much better, these ones don’t have much colour because I made them in bulk to freeze. It was the only picture I had of my balls tho
I meant no offence to your balls :) The whole photo is like that. Could just be your camera, or your lighting.
I can’t believe you would just post a pic of your balls like that
With lingamberries yum!
Ligmaberries
ligma balls
Twice now on my ikea trips the restaurant has been so jampacked that I could not fit even if I shot myself in there with a cannon. ◕︵◕
Find yourself a minimalistic-yet-sturdy bench from some nearby display space and use it as a battering ram to force your way to the food.
EDIT: Apparently they sell bags of frozen official meatballs that you can do yourself:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/meat-25217/
EDIT2: Apparently despite the fact that they deliver the furniture, they won’t deliver the frozen meatballs. You have to go to the store for them. I guess just make one large trip.
They probably deliver many orders on one trip and it would require a truck with a refrigerated box to be up to food safety standards.
The meatballs were actually located right before the main checkouts. 2 lb bags of regular or chicken for $15 each. Very tempting but I had already gone last month, bought items frivolously, and did the same thing again today. By the time I got to the end I knew I had to just shut it down, pay and get out of there. Got 3x chocolate bars for $5 though. Couldn’t help it.
It was pretty packed today - went there around lunchtime, but the line moved fairly quickly and we were at the checkout in maybe 15-20 mins. There are some premade items already on plates right at the start of the line and I’d imagine if you just wanted one or two of those you could skip past the people in front of you waiting to be served meatballs or whatnot and checkout faster.
