Of all the foods I fell in love with in Brazil, Pao de Queijo (literally
translated to ‘bread of cheese’, how can that not be delicious?) is right up there at the top. And it’s been tormenting my soul for the past 10 years as I’ve tried recipe after recipe trying to duplicate the taste and texture I love. You can buy pre-packaged mixes, but they’re not quite the same as homemade. The problem is that there are several different methods to making these little balls of heaven. A lot of them involve lots of hard to find ingredients, and methods like heating a mixture on the stove, kneading a big messy dough, etc. When I was in Brazil, I learned how to make the most quick and easy version- an ultra fast liquid batter that you just poured into a muffin tin. It’s been driving me crazy that I couldn’t find my recipe or one that was like it. And then a few weeks ago something magical happened. My husband walked in after organizing some junk in the garage and asked me if I wanted a little pink notebook. I knew immediately what it was. It was bursting with little scraps of papers. Scraps of papers with recipe notes on them. I heard the hallelujah chorus. We ate Pao de Queijo about 25 minutes later. And it was heavenly.
If you’ve never had this type of Brazilian cheese bread, it’s tricky to explain. It’s actually not “bread” at all- at least not like we’re used to here in the US. It’s almost more like the texture of a cream puff shell or popover, but with more substance on the inside. The outside is slightly crisp and browned and the inside is airy and chewy. If you’re not familiar with them at all then I want you to be fully informed so you don’t expect an actual yeast bread “roll”. If you do, then you’ll probably think these are super weird and gooey. They’re served at popular Brazilian restaurants, but honestly, while I adore those restaurants, I’ve yet to have a really good Pao de Queijo at any of them. So trust me when I tell you that if you like those (or any of the pre-packaged mixes), you will probably love these homemade ones. And if you know anyone who has ties to Brazil like I do, you are sure to melt their heart with these. Once you see how quick and easy they are you’ll be making them all the time!
The best part is that I have 99% of the ingredients in my house pretty much at all times.
The only semi-strange ingredient in there is Tapioca Flour, and it’s actually easier to find than you might think. It’s a really smooth, soft flour that feels much like cornstarch. It’s made from the ground roots of the cassava plant and it’s gluten free for those of you that care about that 🙂
You can grab it off Amazon and have it delivered to you, but a lot of normal grocery stores carry a good selection of Bobs Red Mill products which is the brand I use. Here in Idaho I can always find them at Fred Meyer, near the health food/specialty foods isle. You can also find tapioca flour at Asian markets as it’s used in a lot of Asian cooking, and also at health food stores and places like Whole Foods where you can find a good selection of wheat flour alternatives. Definitely check the gluten free isle of well stocked store. If you live in an area with WINCO grocery stores, people are telling me you can find it in the bulk section (how did not know this?? Thank you readers!) You can’t substitute any other type of flour– the tapioca flour is key, so when you find a good place to buy it, stock up!
Okay, ready for easy? You can prep these in about 60 seconds. Seriously. Put everything but the cheese in the blender (I adore my Blendtec) and blend until smooth.
Then add in your cheese and pulse the blender one or two times. I like to break it up a bit and mix it in, but not pulverize it. And you can be creative here. I like a mixture of Parmesan and sharp cheddar. It’s important to use cheese that has a stronger flavor because it’s really the only flavor you’re putting in there and if it’s too mild I’ve found the rolls turn out pretty bland. But play around with it and find your perfect mix. You can also add more or less cheese, it’s pretty flexible.
Now just take your blender and pour the batter into little mini-muffin tins. It’s a very thin batter so pour slowly!
I like to sprinkle a little more parmesan on top. Because I like to sprinkle a little parmesan on top of just about everything. I inherited that from my father, who puts parmesan on just about everything he makes. A little sprinkle of kosher salt is also yummy.
Recently I was browsing food blogs and was excited to see a nearly identical recipe on Bewitching Kitchen. She mentioned putting rosemary in there, which at first I thought sounded a little strange. Not because I don’t think it would taste good, but because I’d never had pao de queijo with any type of herb before. I tried it just for kicks and man was it good! You can either sprinkle a little dried or fresh rosemary on top, or blend it right in the batter. Loved that addition.
Then you pop these babies in a hot oven and watch them do their magic. They puff up into perfectly little bubbly golden balls of cheesy goodness. How’s that for a descriptive sentence?
You want to cook them just until they’re set on top and barely golden. If you over cook them, the tops actually look pretty similar, but you can tell by the bottoms. Case in point:
And don’t be concerned if the rolls sink in the middle. These photos are actually a bit misleading because I photographed them literally seconds after coming out of the oven. It’s perfectly normal for them to sink down in the centers and they taste exactly the same!
Eating Pao De Queijo warm is a definite must. I’ll just say that right now. As soon as they’re cool enough to handle, bust one open and eat it.
They’ll be a little crispy on the outside and soft, airy, and tender on the inside. Almost a little chewy. Some of them are even kind of hollow. This version is definitely less dense than the kneaded dough variety. The yield is anywhere from 16-24 rolls, depending on how full you fill your muffin pan. I fill mine pretty full (a good 3/4 full) and I generally get about 16-18.
I dare you to just eat one. This recipe is a little dangerous.
Quick Brazilian Cheese Rolls {Pao de Queijo}
- Yield: 16
Description
Literally translates to “bread of cheese”…how can that not be delicious? Quick, easy, and fantastic every time.
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1 cup tapioca flour (sometimes labeled tapioca starch) no substitutions
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 C grated cheddar cheese* (preferably medium or sharp)
- 1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese
- Optional: extra cheese to sprinkle on top and any herbs/flavorings you’d like to add. Try rosemary and or garlic powder, my favorites!
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place egg, milk, oil, tapioca flour, and salt in blender and blend until smooth. Add cheeses and pulse 2 times. Immediately pour batter into a mini muffin tin (if your muffin tin isn’t non-stick, spray lightly with non-stick spray first), filling each well about 3/4 full, or just slightly less. If desired (and I recommend), sprinkle a bit of parmesan cheese on top and/or a tiny sprinkle of kosher salt.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until puffed and golden. Remove from oven and cool for a few minutes before removing rolls from pan. Serve warm. {Que Gostoso!}
Notes
- *Tip: You can play around with the cheese. I’ve used Monterey Jack, low-moisture mozarella, swiss, and even gruyere in place of the cheddar. All great!
- Keep in mind, these actually don’t re-heat well, so I recommend making and eating fresh.
Our daughter requested I try this recipe after trying them at the Texas de Brazil in Denver. I tried 3 different kinds of mini muffin pans — one scalloped, one regular mini muffin and another one that was just a little larger than the regular muffin pan. All three sunk in the middle. I don’t know what I did wrong except that I did not use a blender. The taste is great though. Can you help me make the next batch as good as the picture? Thank you and I’m glad I found your site with help from our grandaughter.
Toni, no worries- it’s actually completely normal for them to sink down in the centers- mine were just photographed seconds after coming out of the oven. They taste exactly the same!
I made these yesterday for my family, one of my daughters is coeliac so I’m always on the look out for gluten free recipes, and the recipe was very easy, worked very well and the breads were gorgeous, light and very tasty. My four kids and my husband all loved them, and believe me it’s no easy job pleasing all of them! Will definitely make this again!
I was just having a sandwich made of bread, queijo minas frescal and requeijão, and I started wondering how my brother (who lives in the US) could ever live without them. they are brazilian cheeses, and I could never ever leave them behind. haha so I searched for cheeses that could substitute them, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find anything so similar. bummer.
however, I found this recipe! and I LOVE pão de queijo!! hahaha so many calories, though!
well, anyway, just giving some love I guess, love the website and I’ll sure come back soon! :))
any vegetarian (I do eat cheese) recipes? haha
One comment — put the liquid ingredients in the blender *before* the tapioca flour. The tapioca flour can get very cement-like and it’s easiest to blend it when the flour is above the wet ingredients. I’ve had bad luck with putting the tapioca in first.
I lived in Brazil, and pao de queijo is my favorite… The recipe looks correct but the bread should look more like this http://brasilcheesebread.com/original. Here in Dallas, lucky me, we have Brasil Cheese Bread, owners from Brasil and their pao de queijo tastes incredible!
Hey People, it is really amazing!!! Try to add cream cheese while it is hot, and taste it, you’ll love it. If you want a recipe of ‘Pastel’ or ‘Coxinha’ as someone said, I can translate and give it to you!
Kisses from Brazil!
Just made a batch. Two things:
-This is HANDS DOWN THEEEEE BEST thing to come out of my oven
-I have a new rule that I am not allowed to make these unless I have people to share with. I just ate the whole thing. Shaaaaaaame on me! 🙂
We love these and have made them a dozen or so times! Thank you so much for the recipe!
I can’t thank you enough for this delicious recipe! My husband served his mission in Brazil and has me hooked on the food and these are my favorite. So easy and so yummy!
Hi there, first off, I’m a Brazilian living in NY and when I saw how easy this recipe is I was blown away. I love pão de queijo so I decided to try it to see if it compares to the traditional Brazilian pao de queijo… and the results were mixed and maybe this is why: I started preparing the dough before the oven had reached 400 (it was only 315 when the dough was ready to go in the oven) so I filled the mini muffin pans and popped them in the oven at 315 degrees. I greased the pans with canola oil and they stuck horribly, but that’s not the problem. After about 15 minutes the tops were puffed up and almost brown so I took them out. They “deflated” within a couple of minutes and when I took them out of the pan (pried them out in fact!) it was doughy and the top had caved in. I tried one and it was so tasty but all the dough was on the bottom and it was veeery heavy, not airy and light at all. Then I had a bit of dough left in the blender so I used a Madeleine cookie sheet as my pan (the little ones that look like seashells) and popped those in the oven and by then the oven was about 350 degrees. These came out SOOO GOOD, super fluffy and light but cheesy at the same time. Do you think the first batch in the muffin pan “deflated” like that and became so heavy and doughy because of the wrong temperature I baked them? I also felt like they were way undercooked too. The little ones were so amazing and crispy and light… I’ll try to make them again and will report my efforts. Let me know if you think the temp. could be a factor (pardon my ignorance, not big on baking!) Maybe if the temp. was correct, baking for 15 min would be sufficient, no? Obrigada!!!
Always fun to hear from Brazilians! I would definitely make sure your oven was pre-heated before you cook these, that is most likely why they stuck to the pan too. The high heat is necessary to immediately start the cooking process and ensure a good texture. I’m glad the second batch turned out well!
Thank you! They are a wonderful treat for a gluten-free person! Yummy!??
My boyfriend and I eat paleo/primal most of the time. When we “cheat”, we use these as hamburger buns for sliders. Or, we use tart tins instead of the muffin tins (4 of them), and use one “tart” for the bottom bun and one for the top. DELISH. OMG, thank you so much! 🙂
Never would have thought to do that- awesome!
These rolls were amazing!! My husband served his mission in Brasil and he loved them. Our kids couldn’t eat them fast enough!
Thank you for this recipe!! This is my absolute favorite thing at our Brazilian Steakhouse and I was able to get a few rolls to go when we went this weekend. I quickly made this recipe so that I could compare the results with the ones from the restaurant. I know that I overcooked them a tad (my bottoms were very golden brown) but I’m not sure if that was my only problem. The rolls I made were a bit crispy on the outside and almost all air on the inside. The ones from the restaurant were very soft on the outside (cooked much less than mine) and quite dense and chewy on the inside. Any idea what I did wrong? Might I have done them too long in the blender or used a particular ingredient that wasn’t fresh enough? My tapicoca flour was older but has been stored in the fridge. My eggs and milk were brand-new so I don’t think it was that. Any suggestions??? Thanks again!
Autumn, the rolls usually served at Brazilian restaurants like that are a little different. They tend to be dense and thick and chewy, often from a mix or prepared from frozen. It’s just a different style so these rolls will be slightly different. This recipe definitely gets more airy the longer they’re cooked, so you might try not cooking them for so long next time.
Thanks for the tip! I love your website. You ladies always have great recipes and beautiful pictures! 🙂
Hi, my name is Jussara, I am Brazilian. Just to answer your question,
– the cheese bread that is served in the restaurant probably is not the same as this, surely they must do the traditional cheese bread. That is another recipe.
I have been looking for this recipe! I can not tell you how excited I am to try it. Thank you so much!!!
This is rad! I grew up in Brazil and was fed up with paying $8 for a 12-pack of tiny, frozen pães de queijo here in Seattle. Although, when I first made this recipe, they turned out a bit too greasy and mushy, so I used 1 1/4 cups of tapioca flour and only 2tbsp of oil. I think your yield calculation is a bit on the optimistic side as well. With my mini-muffin tray, one recipe yielded about 7.
This is really cool, I’m from Brazil and I have a blog of recipes, I love your blog and was happy to see our delicious cheese bread here. Undoubtedly it is our greatest culinary pride.
Sorry for my inglish! =D
Wow! So glad I found your version, and not something else! Oddly I had to go to two stores tonight as Publix had literally every other type of flour and starch, except tapioca! As I scarfed down 12 of the 24 it made about 5 minutes ago, I realized I would have driven to another state, holy crap they are good. Way better than the ones at Sal Grosso, which were so fought in the middle it was just weird! These were light and airy, I have dubbed them GF cream puffs, and can’t wait to play with the recipe, I want to attempt a sweet version, using like a manchego cheese and some fig spread! I am seriously Gluten intolerant, and I was in GF ecstasy eating these! I used Sartori Gold and a 2 yr aged white cheddar, plus 1 tablespoon of fresh snipped chives. Again, WOW AND HOLY CRAP! If you were wondering if you should bother to whip these up…yes, double yes!
Does anyone have a carb/calorie, etc count on these?
I am so excited for this recipe! My husband and I just had those cheesy balls of heaven for the first time at Novilhos restaurant in Factoria, WA Saturday. I can’t wait to make them!
Cherie, that’s my old stomping grounds! I grew up about 2 minutes from Factoria 🙂
It’s pot luck day at work tomorrow. I signed up to make Pao de Queijo. I’ve made another recipe for about 3 years but wanted to try something else. This recipe was WAY easier and WAY faster and way fluffier [email protected]#$%$ NOM NOM NOM. Now there’s only one problem… How do I get these to work before they cool off… Might have to come home before hand to cook them and bring them in quick…
oh! they serve these at the Rheinlander! YUM
I just made these. They are EASY! and YUMMY!! I called my mother right afterwards to brag about it (she makes pao de queijo old-school style). She couldn’t believe it. So I texted her some pics of my final delicious product. Obrigada, Sara!!!!
Can you refrigerate the batter and them make them right before you are ready to eat?
God Bless You! While going to school in Idaho we had Brazilian neighbors(Divino and Lindalva) who would make these sweet cheese rolls bites. Thank you so much for Americanizing them so now I’m going to the store and making some. Can’t thank you enough♥
ps Neighbor would cut them in the middle and put a little tuna inside sometimes. Oh Thank you again. So glad you went to Brazil on your mission. =) Now if I could get that fruit spread in the can with some chashew juice I’d be set. =)
I don’t know why I thought you went to Brazil. My bad. I was so excited I read it wrong.
I DID go to Brazil 🙂
I’m not sure if tapioca flour is the same as “povilho azedo” but I’m brazilian and that’s what we used growing up. There’s not a lot of brazilians in my area but I was able to find this ingredient to substitute for the tapioca flour at my local spanish shop where they have select brazilian items. it works just as well.
Tapioca starch is sold in asian markets.
Like many before me, thanks for this outstandingly good recipe. What I also like is the quantity of the breads.
Not too many.
By the way, I use a Japanese squid ball frying tray, with which the bottom of the pão de queijo becomes round like a ball…
Ok, I haven’t read all the reviews so I’m not sure if someone has already had this problem but I have now made these twice and the inside is doughy and sinks to the bottom resulting in a caved in top. They are still good but it is driving me nuts that they aren’t turning out like they are supposed to. I followed recipe as written. What could be my problem?
Honestly, sometimes that just happens! Sometimes mine are puffed and sometimes they sink- either way they taste good though so I haven’t tried to figure out why it happens! lol
We are gluten-free too and so I was excited to try this recipe. I’ve made them three times now and mine don’t puff up. They turn into little cups which is pretty cool too because you can fill them with stuff. I’ve been using a muffintop pan which are wide & shallow so maybe that is why they don’t puff up. I’ll have to invest in a mini muffin pan. We are really enjoying the pao de quiejo even as cups!
I’m thinking of putting cream cheese (instead of the other cheeses) and a little sugar into the batter and then filling the cups with ice cream. Mmmmmmm
I searched all over my town (it’s a *very* small town) and the one cooking store was out of the mini muffin tins (go figure!) The woman who was working suggested I try mini cupcake/muffin paper cups. I’ll fill those and then place them into my regular sized muffin tin. It may turn out to be a disaster but I’m sure I’ll still turn out with something tasty. 🙂
How did the mini muffin papers turn out? That does sound disastrous, both because I think the batter would stick terribly to the paper and I don’t think the mini papers would hold their shape in the regular muffin tin. I wonder if you couldn’t make regular muffin sized ones instead.