Swedish Cooking

What are the most popular Swedish recipes?

Sourdough bread is very fashionable in Sweden, both to buy and to bake. Swedes like cake with their afternoon coffee, so recipes for sweets are always popular – cinnamon rolls, gingerbread, sponge cake in various flavours – and biscuits.

Every Swede has a good meatball recipe but they'll probably claim their mum makes the best ones.

Another popular dish is Baltic herring. The fish is coated in whisked eggs, breadcrumbs and dill, pan-fried and served with mashed potato and crisp bread.

Do your own Swedish cooking with these Swedish recipes

What do Swedes eat at Christmas?

At Christmas, Swedes pull out all the stops and put on an impressive Smörgåsbord that could feed 3 times as many people as there are guests. Some must-haves are glazed ham (traditional Smörgåsbords even use a pig's head with an apple in the mouth for decoration), small frankfurters (called prince sausages), beetroot salad, salmon (both smoked and roast), Janson's temptation (a potato and anchovy bake), lots of different kinds of herring, patés, and meatballs… obviously.

For dessert, most people eat rice pudding. Swedes put an almond in the pudding and whoever gets it is assured of luck in the new year (according to tradition, if a single female gets the almond, she'll get married in the next year). Everyone drinks plenty of schnapps and all join in with popular drinking songs before saying 'skål!' (cheers!).

What drinks are popular in Sweden?

Swedes drink a lot of lager (pilsner) and vodka. At Christmas, they also drink mulled wine with raisins and almonds. For the kids, there's Julmust which is quite similar to dandelion and burdock. They get the same thing again for Easter, but re-packaged as Påskmust (påsk = easter). Swedes also drink a lot of coffee, mostly black.

Is there a typical Swedish dessert?

The most popular dessert is cake, and of cakes the Princess cake is most popular. It is a sponge base with whipped cream and custard, covered with a thin lid of green marzipan.

Swedes love semla, traditionally eaten on the last Tuesday before Lent. Nowadays, it goes on sale at Christmas time. A semla is a wheat bun cut in half and served with marzipan and whipped cream. Some like to serve it in a bowl of hot milk.

What are the main ingredients that I'll need for Swedish cooking?

Swedes eat a lot of potatoes in various forms as well as other root vegetables. Fish is also a must.

What are the best Swedish sweets?

Swedes like sweets and are some of the biggest sweet consumers in the world. Their liquorice comes in a wide variety: there's sweet, salty, chewy, boiled and even chocolate-filled. You can get liquorice biscuits and ice cream too.

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