Swedish cuisine is characterized by simple, hearty dishes often featuring fresh, locally sourced ingredients.
The Swedish people are very centered on health, which factors into their food choices.
Fish is a popular staple since it is very plentiful. This is easy to see since Sweden is surrounded by the sea in basically all directions.
As you make your way around different neighborhoods, you will see that most yards have at least one fruit tree. Apples and pears are very popular.
Swedes love to go in the forest and pick mushrooms. Their most highly valued mushroom is the delicate golden chanterelle. It’s found between July and September. These are fried up in many dishes such as omelettes and pasta. Karljohansvamp, another mushroom, is so plentiful that it is even exported.
The wild blueberry grows everywhere. You will find these almost anywhere you walk, even in local parks. There are also lingonberries and wild strawberries. The most prized is the cloudberry. They are golden, soft, and juicy and grow very low to the ground. Berry picking starts about the second or third week in July and ends towards the end of August.
Local ingredients for Swedish food include: beef, chicken, lamb, pork, fish, eggs, crisp and soft (often sugared) breads, dairy products, butter and margarine are the primary fat sources, potatoes, root vegetables, cabbage, onions, apples, berries, mushrooms
Food Facts: Sweden is the number 2 coffee-drinking nation. Milk consumption is very high, only second to Finland.
Smörgås – Single sliced open-faced sandwiches.
Räksmörgås – Open-faced sandwich with shrimp, boiled egg slices, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber often topped with a creamy Creme Fraiche blended with dill sprigs and roe.
Swedish Meatballs (Köttbullar) – Traditional beef meatballs in a brown cream sauce served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam (much like cranberry sauce)
Pickled Herring (Sill) – This comes in different flavors: mustard, onion, garlic and dill, and others. This is a traditional meal served at Midsummer with sour cream with chives on the side, along with boiled potatoes and a half of a hard-boiled egg, sharp hard cheese, and crispbread.
Pea soup (Ärtsoppa) – The soup is made with yellow peas, onion, and pork. It is often followed with pancakes for dessert. It is a traditional meal eaten every Thursday.
Swedish pancakes (Pankaka) – These pancakes are very thin, much like a crepe, often eaten as a meal (Raggmunk) in the winter. The pancake is fried in butter and served with fried pork or lingonberries.
Cured salmon (Grav Lax) – The salmon is cured using salt, sugar, and dill. Usually served as an appetizer, thinly sliced and accompanied by a sauce (hovmästarsås), made with mustard and dill. This is generally eaten on bread or crispbread with lemon and pepper; or with boiled potatoes.
Potato Dumplings (Kroppkaka) – Dumplings with a filling of meats, potatoes, and onions.
Meat Stew with Onions
Dumplings made with blood (Blodpalt)
Blood pudding – This is made with blood, sweetened and spiced; often eaten with lingonberry jam.
Blood sausage – other than pork blood, contains flour, pork, raisins, and spices.
Mini sausages (Rinskorvar)
Fishballs (Fiskbullar) – This is made from minced white fish shaped into balls.
Brown beans and pork (Bruna Bönor och Fläsk) – similar to American hotdogs and beans in a casserole.
Egg Anchovy Salad (Gubbröra) – served on a thin slice of dark bread and mostly presented during celebrations.
Toast Skagen – sautéed bread with prawns, whitefish roe, Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, and fresh dill.
Falukorv – big and thick sausage ring.
Crispbread (Knäckebröd) – a cracker-like bread that comes in various flavors, thickness, and shapes. It is topped with butter, sliced boiled eggs, caviar, ham and cheese, cucumber slices.
Chanterelle – A mushroom delicacy usually served as a side dish together with steaks, or fried with onions and sauce served on an open sandwich.
Porcini – another popular mushroom variety.
Fruit soups – rose hip soup and blueberry soup are two basic soups.
Seasonal Foods
Jansson’s Temptation (Frestelse) – is a classic Christmas creamy potato and anchovy casserole.
Fermented Sour Baltic Herring (Surströmming) – this comes in cans and is often eaten with boiled potatoes and salad. It is eaten outside from late August to early September. It is so stinky and has been compared to rotten eggs and raw sewage.
Crayfish Parties (Kräftskivor) – salted crayfish very popular in August.
Sweets/Desserts
Princess Cake (Prinsesstårta) – It has layers of yellow sponge cake lined with jam and vanilla custard, then finished off with a thin layer of sugary sweet green marzipan. It is topped with a bright pink sugar rose. The third week in September is Princess Cake Week.
Cinnamon Bun (Kannelbullen) – a bun filled with cream and almond paste known as semlor. (Eaten the day before Ash Wednesday; the first day of Lent)
Waffles (Våfflor) – eaten on March 25th.
Ginger Snaps (Pepparkaka) – ginger cookies
Licorice Candy (Saltlakrits) – licorice gelatin candy