What Are the Most Common Home Cooked Dishes in Brazil?

Brazil is a massive country with a historic food culture made up of a fusion of native foods and influences from northern Africa, Portugal, and later influences from Germany, Japan, Italy, Syria, and Lebanon, among others.

What this means is that distilling the entire food culture of the nation down into a blog post is essentially impossible.  There are far too many options, from far too many different origins, to say that this is a perfect picture of Brazilian food culture.

The truth is, every Brazilian state, every region within each state, every city, all the way down to every individual family will have their own idea for what is and isn’t a typical, common home-cooked meal.  So, rather than pick a short list of five or ten food items to call the most common, we’ve rounded up information from our Brazilian friends, to tell us what their families ate growing up, and what they considered iconic for Brazil.

You may be surprised at some of the items on this list, but it’s all delicious food, and it’s all stuff you can find somewhere in Brazil.  Read on to get an idea of what you could expect if you visited the country, or just want to make something to help a Brazilian friend feel less homesick.

Rice and Beans

Perhaps the number one most common food item shared throughout all of Brazil is some combination of rice and beans.  Some have even gone so far as to say that they barely even consider a meal a meal if it doesn’t have a base of rice and beans.  Brazilian black beans have been a staple for hundreds of years, and rice is such a common, versatile, and filling addition to any meal that it forms a perfect base.

A Brazilian rice and bean dish is generally going to be centered around some kind of meat, and often a vegetable, whether it’s potato, broccoli, carrot, or a mixture of different veg.  What form, exactly, these take will vary from home to home and from day to day.

Prato Feito

Often found abbreviated simply as PF, Prato Feito translates to “composed plate” and is one of the simplest workhorse meals in Brazil.  It’s the “blue plate special” of Brazil, and a staple midday meal for millions of workers across the country.

It usually includes rice, beans, French fries, some kind of meat or protein like chicken or fish, a fried egg, and some sort of simple salad composed mostly of a leaf or two of lettuce and a couple of slices of tomato.  It’s simple, cheap, filling, and tasty enough to satisfy the midday cravings and keep you going for the rest of the workday.

Feijao Tropeiro

A traditional dish found throughout the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, the feijao tropeiro considered by some to be the “ultimate Brazilian dish”, though of course others from outside the state will likely disagree.

It’s a hearty mixture of sausage, bacon, beans, collard greens, and egg, lightly coated with toasted manioc flour.  Spread over rice and toped with a fried egg, it’s a simple and filling meal suitable for Brazilians of all backgrounds.

Chicken and Farofa

Farofa is a unique Brazilian dish made of cassava flour, toasted into a grainy, almost sand-like texture.  This dish is then loaded with other ingredients, like bacon, chicken, beef, beans, and other ingredients.

Chicken is perhaps the most common of the additions, since it’s one of the cheapest and most readily available protein sources to the majority of Brazil.

Arroz de Forno

This dish is mostly made as a side for another dish, like a beef roast cooked in an oven.  It’s primarily rice, mixed with a beef or chicken stock, some onion and garlic, some herbs, and a protein like chorizo or bacon for additional substance and flavor.

The whole dish is baked alongside the main course, and serves as one of the main kinds of rice to use as a base for a place.  It’s simple delicious, and easy to tailor to complement whatever your main course may be.

Bife a Role

In Japan, a sheet of rice and some ingredients like fish, avocado, and crab are rolled up and served as sushi.  In parts of Europe, a sheet of cake is spread with jelly and cream and rolled into a roll cake.

In Brazil, a large, flat piece of thinly-sliced beef is layered with carrot, onion, bacon, and other ingredients, rolled, and fried into bife a role, literally beef rolls.  Often cooked in a sauce and served with rice and beans, this dish is simple and tasty.

Ovo Frito e Farinha

This simple dish goes by many variations of the name, but the core is pretty simple.  Take farofa, the toasted cassava flour mentioned above, and mix into it some scrambled eggs.

Add in some bacon or sausage and onion, or top with another fried egg, and you have a simple, protein-packed dish that is quite common across Brazil.

Baiao de Dois

A Brazilian dish known simply as “black-eyed peas and rice”; the name belies the complexity of the meal.  There’s a lot more to this dish than just rice and beans.  It’s a common variation on the simple meal, most often found in the northeastern regions of Brazil.

Meats may or may not be added depending on the region and the family history with the recipe, and it can be augmented with a sauce of cheese and cream.

An interesting meal, roupa velha is traditionally a peasant food eaten as a lunch made from leftovers and scraps.  These days, it has taken on the name “Christmas Eve Cod” because of how it has grown in stature over the years.

It takes leftover cod, potatoes, eggs, and cabbage, cooking them together into a surprisingly tasty, if not very photogenic, meal.

Costela no Bafo

This is also a very simple meal found throughout Brazil, though recipes vary depending on where you go and where you get it.  All it is, is the back ribs of a cow, roasted until they turn almost black with flavor.

Unlike the BBQ ribs we get in the States, these are very lightly seasoned; the flavor comes entirely from the meat itself and the roasting method.  The result is an exceedingly rich and tender beef dish that, of course, is almost always accompanied by some kind of rice and beans.

Brazilian Pastel

When you hear the world pastel, you might think of light, airy colors, but in Brazil the word has a very different meaning.  The humble pastel is a simple and easy to enjoy street food, made with a crispy fried dough stuffed with filling.

The filling can range from sweet to savory, and can have palm hearts, cheese, beef, and more.  A stuffed dough pastry is common all around the world, from the norther Pasty to the Spanish Empanada, and they’re all delicious variations on the same theme.

Virado a Paulista

While many Brazilian dishes are a single dish served alongside others for a full meal – or on their own as a snack or smaller midday meal – a few are essentially whole meals on a place.

Virado a Paulista, also simply known as virado, is one such dish.  It’s a whole platter covered in beans cooked in onion and garlic, toasted manioc flour, pork chops and sausage, a fried plantain or two, fried eggs, some kale or collards, and of course some rice to round it out.  Estimates say that half a million of these dishes are served every week in Sao Paulo alone!

Ensopado de Galinha

Also known as galinha ensopada, this is a rich and hearty stew made out of chicken, usually the dark meat found in chicken thighs.

The chicken is stewed in a mixture of chicken broth and tomatoes, with a handful of flavor add-ons like onion and pepper, but the star of the show is the interplay between acidic tomato and rich chicken.  Simple, easy, cheap, and exceedingly common all throughout Brazil.

Coxinha

Another example of the simplicity you can find in Brazilian food is the coxinha.  These are chicken croquettes, a deep fried teardrop of breaded chicken salad, usually served with a dip of some kind and some slices of lemon to give it a bit of tart and tangy balance.

They are perhaps a little less common as a home-cooked dish than they are as a street food sold by vendors, but they’re still common, relatively easy to make, and delicious.

Moquecca

Stews are one of the most common forms of simple homemade meal around the world.  Throwing a bunch of ingredients in a pot and letting it cook for hours while you go about other household tasks is a time-honored way of serving something delicious to the family, and some stew recipes are jealously guarded secrets.  Not so the Moquecca, which is a simple fish stew.

Made with a flaky whitefish, shrimp, garlic, ginger, red pepper, and topped off with some coconut milk and a handful of vegetables, the stew is perfect to serve over rice for a hearty and filling meal you can find in any home in Brazil.

Pasta Bolognese

Remember how we mentioned some of the traditional home-cooked meals in Brazil might surprise you?  And how Brazilian food culture isn’t just limited to African, Portuguese, and similar influences?  Here’s a prime example.

Chances are you’re quite familiar with pasta Bolognese, or the variations of the sauced-up pasta noodles, right?  Well, Brazilians love them too, so a simple Bolognese, or even just a spaghetti, is common across the country.

Baked Kibbeh

Another potentially unexpected but delicious food you can find all throughout Brazil is baked kibbeh.  Kibbeh is a mixture of ground beef, onion, bulgur wheat, with spices, formed into ovals and baked.  Sometimes they’re stuffed, sometimes not; they’re easy to dip in a variety of different sides, from tabbouleh to baba ghanoush to hummus to a Brazilian stew.

They’re the national dish of Lebanon and Syria, so it’s no surprise that immigrants from those countries brought the dish with them when they landed in Brazil.

Vitella Tonnato

Another import from a far-off land, this one also comes from Italy.  Traditionally, it’s a marinated and braised veal, sliced thing and served cold as an antipasto, topped with tuna, capers, and anchovy, and a mayonnaise sauce.

The Brazilian version is often a little different, and may use beef instead of veal, but the concept remains the same.

Brazilian Stroganoff

One of the most interesting culinary imports in Brazil is the stroganoff.  A traditional beef stroganoff comes from Russia and eastern Europe, but the version found in Brazil is almost entirely different.

For one thing, it’s usually made with chicken instead of beef.  It’s cooked almost like a stew in a sauce made of tomatoes and heavy cream and, of course, served over rice.

Churrasco

Churrasco is maybe cheating a little bit, because it’s less of a single dish and more of an experience.  It’s a very popular and prevalent meal made all around Brazil, from restaurants to home-made celebrations.  It’s very common for those celebrations, in fact, from birthdays to holidays to special occasions and family gatherings.  It’s not an every-day kind of meal, because there’s so much going on, and so many delectable meats on offer.  Since most of the typical Brazilian daily meals are on the cheaper side, these are very much the kinds of meals a Brazilian family makes for special reasons.

Churrasco is, of course, a Brazilian barbecue.  Various cuts of meat are skewered and roasted over a fire, and served alongside a variety of sides, including, of course, the rice and beans, as well as various stews, cheese bread, and several of the other dishes on this list.

Fortunately, you don’t have to go all the way to Brazil to experience churrasco for yourself.  At Texas de Brazil, we’ve brought the churrascaria experience to America (and around the world), with trained gauchos cooking and serving delectable meats, incredible sides, and an experience unlike any other.

Want to experience it for yourself?  All you need to do is find the nearest location and stop on by!

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