Experiencing a Rodizio-style dinner at a churrascaria is a crash course in Brazilian dining, and it can be tough to navigate if you aren’t prepared. It’s simple when you know what’s going on, but when it’s your first time, it can feel overwhelming. Worse, when all is said and done, and you’re leaving for the evening, you might feel regretful or as if you were missing out on something.

The good news is, there’s not actually a lot to learn, so we can give you a quick and complete rundown right here on this page. So, whether you’re preparing for your first trip to a churrascaria, or you’re gearing up for a second (or third) and want to make sure you’re doing it right, read on for all our tips.

Laying the Foundation

First of all, it can help to learn a little bit of basic Brazilian Portuguese so you know what some of those strange terms are that we use. It’s all pretty simple, once you get a rundown.

Churrasco/Churrascaria: Barbecue! Churrasco is the particular kind of over-the-fire barbecue renowned in Brazil, and a churrascaria is a restaurant that serves it, like Texas de Brazil.

Rodizio: A particular serving style popular in churrascarias; instead of ordering off a menu, various barbecued meats are brought through the dining area, and you can claim a few slices of each. This allows you to try nearly everything without having to overload yourself with just one item.

Gaucho: A cowboy! This is the Brazilian historic cowboy known for their deep love of beef. Our servers are gauchos, and they’re the ones who bring your meats out from the grill to the table, cut off slices with a flourish, and help you enjoy your meal.

Picanha: A cut of beef commonly enjoyed in Brazil, but not usually cut the same way in America. It’s rich, delectable, and full of beefy flavor, and is one of the sources of pride of the Brazilian beef industry and culture.

Cachaca/Caipirinha: For the alcohol-enjoyers, Cachaca is a Brazilian spirit made with sugarcane, similar to rum. Caipirinha is a cocktail made specifically with cachaca.

That’s basically everything you need to know, terminology-wise. If you’re interested in learning the very basics of Brazilian Portuguese so you can pronounce these words properly, we have a guide to that as well.

Now, there are a few other topics worth discussing before you head out to enjoy your meal. We have guides to answer them, but we’ll give you the short version here and a link so you can read more if you want to. We also have a quick FAQ if you have a question we didn’t answer here.

What’s the deal with the red and green cards?

This is a core part of the Rodizio experience. You have a card; red on one side, green on the other.

Gauchos, when they bring meat out from the grill, look for those cards. Green means you’re good to go; bring the meat over and carve a slice or two. Red means you’re good for now, no need to add anything else to the plate.

Other than picanha, what are the Brazilian cuts of meat on the menu?

A lot of the meats on our menu are things you’ll be familiar with: petit filet, sirloin, and so on. A few of the cuts have different names, though, so if you want to learn more, you can read our guide.

Here at Texas de Brazil, we use American names for most of the cuts, so you don’t have to worry about being confused.

What’s the dining etiquette at a churrascaria? Is there a dress code?

First off, there’s not really a dress code, at least not for our churrascaria. We prefer something a little better than jeans and a t-shirt, but we aren’t going to bar you from entering or kick you out unless you’re wearing something blatantly offensive or upsetting to our other guests.

As far as etiquette is concerned, there are a couple of things to know.

• The tongs aren’t just for show. Alongside your usual silverware, you’ll have a set of tongs. These are meant specifically for taking meat the gaucho cuts from their skewer and transferring it to your plate. This way, you aren’t using utensils you’ve put in your mouth and potentially contaminating food other diners would enjoy.
• Meats, items in the salad area, and the hot bar are all available as part of your meal and come with no real limits other than closing time. Dine as long as you like, take your time to enjoy the atmosphere and the food, and don’t worry about cycling through ASAP.
• Drinks, desserts, and the occasional specialty item are not generally included with your meal and need to be ordered separately. We’ll have menus for those.
• Sorry, no to-go boxes or doggy bags, except for special items like desserts that cost extra. Try to only grab what you’re willing and able to eat, so we aren’t wasting a bunch of food (though we won’t get mad if you leave a couple of bites behind).

There are a few Brazilian table manners you could learn if you’re interested, but unless you’re actually going to Brazil, you don’t really need them. We understand that Texas de Brazil is a restaurant here in America, and American table manners are much more commonplace.

What’s the difference between lunch and dinner?

Lunch is earlier in the day!

Okay, so there’s a bit more difference, usually. Our lunch menu is generally a bit more limited, and a few of the prime cuts or sides in the salad and hot areas are less likely to be available. The trade-off is that it’s usually cheaper than the full dinner experience.

This varies from location to location; some of our restaurants don’t have different menus, while others do. Be sure to check the details at your local Texas de Brazil.

Do I need to make a reservation?

Need to? No. Is it a good idea? Maybe! Sometimes, we’re half-empty and have plenty of space to get you right in when you arrive. Other times, an event, holiday, or large group has kept us busy, and there may be a bit of a wait. A reservation ensures that there will be a table available for you and your group.

It’s also really easy to make a reservation right here on our website or by calling ahead.

Whew! That’s a lot of information, and we haven’t even gotten to the actual dining experience yet! But now that you’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to actually come in for a visit.

Getting the Most Out of a Brazilian BBQ Dinner

So, you’re ready to stop in. What do you need to know, and what should you do, to ensure you get to try everything you want without feeling like you’re missing something?

Keep the portions small.

Since your churrasco experience is a continuous dining experience, you essentially have a buffet laid out before you, and it’s very easy to overload on one or two items, only to find you’re too full when the next round comes by.

Perhaps the single biggest tip is to keep portions of everything you grab small.

The good news is, this is done for you as far as the meats are concerned. Our gauchos will generally only offer a slice or two of any given meat (or a rib or two, or a drumette or two), and won’t let you slide the whole skewer right onto your plate. After all, a big reason why you’re here is to try all the meats, right?

The real trap is the salad area and hot bar. The foods there are delicious, but since you don’t have a friendly staff member there to help you with portion control, it’s really easy to make a big salad or a heaping helping of feijoada and fill yourself right up.

That said, a lot of “guides” out there will tell you to skip the salad area entirely. We say: that’s a great way to miss out on some excellent food.

Sure, putting together a salad with a greens mix and some veggies is nothing new, and most of our ingredients are common in America, so you aren’t missing much when you skip them. But some items are definite must-try foods.

• Farofa. This toasted cassava adds texture and crunch to anything you put it on, and serves great as an accessory to your meats, so a small scoop will go a long way.
• Chimichurri. While you might have had a similar green sauce in the past, Brazilian chimichurri is unique. It’s also a sauce and topping, so a little will last you without filling you up.
• Pao de Queijo. This gluten-free cheese bread made using cassava flour is an all-star and a must-try when you visit a Brazilian churrascaria. Just limit yourself to one or two, so you don’t fill up on bread!
• Feijoada. Brazil’s national food, a black bean stew, is also a must-try item if you’ve never had it before. It’s hearty and filling, though, so keep your portion light (unless you really like it and want more, of course!)

Most everything else is something either aimed more at our vegetarian guests who don’t get the meat menu, or are nods to American tastes or to kids with picky palates. Things like French fries and mashed potatoes are tasty, for sure, but they’ll keep you from the best meats if you aren’t careful.

Try the meats, and pace yourself.

When your card is set to green, gauchos will come through rapidly, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Don’t be afraid to take a slice or two of the meat on offer, but don’t overload yourself.

Critically, don’t be afraid to flip your card to red when you need a moment. If you load up your plate with meat too quickly, you’ll let it get cold, and it’ll lose some of the flavor and texture that makes it incredible.

Don’t worry, none of the meats are in short supply. If one passes you over and you want to try it later, there’s a very good chance it will come around again. If you don’t see it, you can flag down the next gaucho to come by and request that it come your way, as well.

Nothing will be limited from you unless you’re clearly trying to exploit the system by only requesting Picanha or Filet Mignon over and over without touching the other meats. They’re delicious, yes, but leave some for everyone else!

Tip: Don’t forget about the non-beef meats! While the beef is the star of the show, the lamb, pork, and chicken are also all delicious. Grabbing a couple of Parmesan drumettes, a slice from the leg of lamb, and a couple of pork ribs will help cleanse the palate and make each bite of beet all the more unique.

Don’t be afraid to take your time.

As mentioned in the etiquette section above, there’s no time limit other than closing time, so don’t feel like you need to speed-run dinner and be out the door in an hour. If you need a few minutes to rest and let the meal settle, take it!

The caveat here is if we’re quite busy, in which case it’s a little rude to linger for hours while others are waiting for a table. We won’t hurry you, but it’s still nice to be polite, right?

Grab a dessert to go!

Some of our desserts are Brazilian classics, but we get it; it’s hard to find room for one when you’ve been buried under delicious meats and incredible sides.

Like we said above, there’s no doggy bags for the meat and sides, since it would be too easy to exploit the system if there were. But, since desserts are ordered separately, we’re happy to box them up to go for you.

Stop in to Texas de Brazil Soon!

Alright, setting aside the kayfabe for a moment, there’s no wrong way to experience churrasco. Come in, enjoy what you want to enjoy, and leave happy. If that means a big plate of rice and beans with a few slices of meat on top, that’s fine! If you go into it treating it like a battleground where you need to pack in your bodyweight in meat, you’re going to feel miserable and have bad memories of the experience.

Don’t be afraid to simply enjoy your meal. We’re here to help with exactly that, so find your nearest Texas de Brazil and stop in soon. We’d love to show you what churrasco is all about!

Gluten intolerance and gluten allergies are being increasingly recognized worldwide as a serious condition. The good news is, a lot of Brazilian cuisine is gluten-free, including some items you might not expect!

When you visit your local Texas de Brazil, you can be sure that you’ll have a good time. While some of our menu items do contain gluten, most of them do not, and our gauchos are more than happy to make sure you know what to avoid and what you can enjoy.

So you know what you’re getting into (and what to look forward to), let’s go through our menu from top to bottom, along with some other Brazilian staples, and talk about what is and isn’t gluten-free. If you want to check for yourself, our nutrition page flags everything with gluten so you can avoid it as necessary.

Meats: The Star of the Show

When you’re visiting a churrascaria like Texas de Brazil, the meat is the centerpiece. We love our beef as all Brazilians do, but there’s more on the menu besides just various forms of steak.

Meat, as you likely already know, is naturally gluten-free. But that doesn’t mean it’s always safe! Meat can be a “trap” when you’re avoiding gluten; you assume it’s safe, only to find it’s not.

So, what’s the cause?

While the meat itself is gluten-free, things like breadings and marinades might not be. On top of that, some kinds of processed meats like sausages might include gluten-based ingredients as a binder. Ingredients like soy sauce or teriyaki often have gluten in them, breadcrumbs for breaded items are often gluten-based, and many sauces include gluten as well.

The good news is, you aren’t going to run into that here, for the most part.

Brazilian churrasco is famously light on the spices and marinades, with almost no cuts of meat using them at all. Most churrasco is nothing more than meat, heat, and salt, none of which includes gluten.

Even when there’s a spice rub involved, most of the time it also doesn’t include anything with gluten in it.

When you look through the meats on our menu, a few might stand out as potential issues. While the basic meats like picanha, petit filet, and sirloin are certainly going to be fine, you might wonder about others, such as:

• Barbecued pork ribs
• Brazilian sausage
• Parmesan-crusted drumettes and pork loin
• Spicy sirloin or picanha

All of these are likely to give you pause. Barbecue sauce might have gluten-carrying ingredients, sausage might have a gluten binder, breaded meats might use wheat-based breadcrumbs, and a spicy rub could have gluten in it.

Here’s the good news: none of ours do. You’re free to enjoy anything at all in the rotating selection of meats without worrying about gluten.

Exploring the Salad Area

The continuous dining experience available in our churrascaria means you’re free to enjoy meats nearly as soon as you sit down, once our gauchos start to rotate by your table. Beforehand, in between, or after, you can head over to our salad area, where you can put together salads and sides without the need to make an order and wait.

Gluten-containing ingredients are common in salad areas. While things like a greens mix, cheeses, and various vegetables are certainly safe, things like breads, croutons, certain dressings, and other prepared items might contain gluten.

Ours is really no different. Some of the items in our salad area do contain gluten ingredients, so you’ll want to watch out.

• Ciabatta. Obviously, a wheat-based bread is going to contain gluten. This is nothing new.
• Couscous Salad. Couscous is traditionally made with semolina, and semolina is a wheat product, which means it has gluten in it. While you can make your own gluten-free couscous, we do not; you’ll be best off avoiding this one.
• Cucumber Salad. This one is tricky; nothing in it seems like it should have gluten in it, but it’s hidden in one of the dressings. Unfortunately, you’ll want to try a different salad instead.
• Onion Ceviche. This is another one where the ingredients list makes you think there’s nothing with gluten in it, but it’s once again hiding in one of the minor ingredients. If you’re still interested, authentic Peruvian recipes can be great and gluten-free!
• Salami. While our salad area offers several kinds of cold cuts, including prosciutto, the salami contains a gluten-based binding agent, so you’ll want to skip that one.
• Tabbouleh. Another international favorite, tabbouleh is unfortunately made with bulgur wheat, which is very much not gluten-free.

That’s it! Everything else in our salad area is gluten-free, and you should be perfectly fine eating it.

One item that stands out here is farofa. Farofa is a toasted flour, so why is it gluten-free? The secret is, it’s not wheat flour. Farofa is the starch from the cassava root, which is processed into a flour with properties similar to other grain flours.

So, while farofa might seem like toasted breadcrumbs, it’s something a little more unique to Brazilian culture. Best of all, cassava doesn’t contain gluten at all, so farofa is 100% gluten-free.

Warm and Hearty Foods at the Hot Bar

Adjacent to the salad area is the hot bar, where foods that need to be kept warm are held available. This one is, unfortunately, a bit of a minefield for the gluten-intolerant. Most of what we have to offer here has gluten involved in some way or another.

In fact, there are only a few items in the hot bar that are safe for the gluten-intolerant. The fried bananas are mostly just bananas, sugar, and spices, so they’re safe. The jasmine rice is, of course, just rice.

Most interesting, the Brazilian cheese bread (known as pao de queijo) is actually gluten-free! This Brazilian bread specialty is made entirely using cassava flour, so while you get a soft, chewy, bread-like treat, it doesn’t include wheat flour and thus has no gluten in it.

On the other hand, another Brazilian classic is off-limits if you’re gluten-intolerant: the feijoada.

Feijoada is a black bean stew made with beans, smoked meats, and a range of other ingredients. While some recipes are gluten-free, ours uses certain sausages that contain gluten, making the entire thing unfortunately unavailable to those avoiding gluten.

Similarly, other hot items also include gluten ingredients. You’ll want to avoid the cream of jalapeno soup, the fish stew, the lobster bisque, the potatoes au gratin, and the sauteed mushrooms.

Fortunately, there are so many delicious items to be found elsewhere that you’ll never feel too limited in your choices.

Finishing the Meal with Desserts

Desserts in Brazil are a way of life as much as they are a treat at the end of a meal. We love our sugar, and we love our treats.

The downside, as you might imagine, is that a lot of desserts are baked goods, and a lot of baked goods require flour to make them. Most of them aren’t easy to make with a flour substitute, or they won’t turn out right, so there aren’t gluten-free alternatives available.

What should you avoid?

• Bananas Foster Pie
• Brazilian Cheesecake
• Carrot Cake
• Chocolate Mousse Cake
• Coconut Chess Pie
• Key Lime Pie
• Pecan Pie

The pies have flour in their crusts in particular.

On the other hand, there are still a few desserts you can enjoy without the risk of gluten.

Brazilian flan is one such dessert. This sweet and custardy dessert is made using eggs, condensed milk, regular milk, and sugar, with no flour involved.

The crème brulee is also free of gluten-carrying ingredients, so you’re safe to give it a try as well.

Finally, the papaya cream treat is a tropical fruit favorite and is also free of gluten.

While the dessert menu is a little sparse when you’re avoiding gluten, there are still some options available. Realistically, though, we find that most people are having too much fun enjoying themselves with the meats to leave much space for desserts, so you’re not likely to miss it too much.

Something to Sip from the Drinks Menu

Drinks can also be tricky when you’re avoiding gluten. Beers, IPAs, and similar are based on barley or wheat and are going to contain gluten. Most other alcohols are gluten-free, and some can be made in gluten-free ways. Even grain alcohols that start with a gluten grain can eventually be free of it once they’re distilled.

The good news is, our bar menu is more or less entirely free from gluten. If you order some odd mixer from the bar, it might have gluten in it, but your bartender should know and be able to tell you, as long as you tell them ahead of time.

If you’re just in the mood for a bit of tipple, you’re free to choose what you like, from the wines to the spirits. If you want something a little more uniquely Brazilian, cachaca is a Brazilian sort of rum-like booze made with sugarcane juice and is wholly gluten-free. You can enjoy it as it is, or in one of the many cocktail recipes that call for it, including the famous Brazilian caipirinhas.

The wines, as well, are freely available, and we offer quite a few to choose from. Feel free to take your pick!

Other Brazilian Foods with No Gluten

If you’re going to another Brazilian restaurant (though, why would you?) or if you’re planning a trip to Brazil directly, what other great foods are gluten-free that you should look for?

First of all, just about every meal in Brazil is accompanied by rice, beans, or both, and those are near-universally gluten-free.

You’re also likely to find tapioca-based recipes all over the place. Tapioca is the same base ingredient as farofa (the cassava root), so it’s naturally gluten-free. Any tapioca-based dessert is probably fine, as are things like crepes and flatbreads made with the starch.

Brazil is also packed with all kinds of unique and exotic fruits, which are all gluten-free. With so many fresh and delicious fruits available, you won’t miss the cakes and pies you can’t have.

On the other hand, there are a few classic Brazilian foods you might also want to avoid, even though we don’t offer them.

• Acaraje. This is a fritter made with black-eyed peas, which normally would be fine, but some of the fillings include bread. Be sure to ask ahead of time.
• Anything with a sauce or that uses soy sauce as an ingredient. It’s easy for gluten to slip into some of these recipes, so be sure to ask.
• Street foods. While the foods themselves might be technically gluten-free, street food vendors don’t have a lot of space to work with, so they’ll reuse prep areas, and there may be cross-contamination.

If you need to, the Brazilian Portuguese phrase “nao contem gluten” translates to “doesn’t contain gluten” and is what you should look for. You can also say “sem gluten” to ask for “without gluten”, or say “doenca celiaca” to clarify that you have celiac disease, or “nao posso comer gluten” to convey that you can’t eat gluten.

Tips for the Best Experience at Texas de Brazil

Just come in and enjoy yourself!

When you arrive, all you need to do is mention to your server that you’re gluten-intolerant. They’ll be happy to walk you through what is and isn’t on offer that day, and what you should avoid. The great news is, we have so many excellent gluten-free menu items (and we take food prep seriously) that you’re definitely going to be able to have a great time. It won’t be hard to avoid the gluten altogether, and it’s not really hidden in much of anything except a couple of stray salads. In other words, it’s largely in line with what you already know to avoid.

We’d love to have you stop on by and experience the wonder of gluten-free churrasco yourself! Find your nearest location, book a reservation or stop on in directly, and we’ll make sure you enjoy the best Brazil has to offer.

Curiosity about a food culture outside of your own is a good thing. When it comes to something like Brazilian food culture, though, you often run into a particular barrier: a lot of resources are in Portuguese! It’s one thing to be interested in a culture, but quite another to learn a whole language to do it. When online translations can be wrong, it’s worth asking an authority you can trust.

That’s why we try to cover as many questions about Brazilian food as we can, even when those questions might seem simple or obvious.

For one thing, the answer isn’t always obvious or straightforward. Something you feel is self-evident might actually have a lot of complexity or nuance to it, or might be very contextual. Other times, even if the answer is simple, the reason behind it might be fascinating or have a lot of history. We like exploring these kinds of topics.

Which brings us to today’s question. Churrasco, the fantastic Brazilian method of barbecuing meats, is known to cook all manner of cuts of beef, alongside other meats like lamb, chicken, and pork. You’ve also likely read that we cook those meats on skewers over open flame. Yes, even the trickier cuts like sausages are skewered over the fire.

So, do we cook boneless meats, or bone-in meats, or both?

Starting With the Simple Answer

To get the answer out of the way, it’s: both!

When you’re browsing the menu at a fine churrascaria, or you’re just enjoying the parade of meats the gauchos bring out in the rodizio, you’ll see everything from beef ribs to picanha, bone-in and boneless alike.

The truth is, Brazilians don’t much mind bones in their meat, so we don’t go out of our way to remove them. By the same token, there are plenty of cuts that are far enough away from a bone in the cattle that trying to keep them bone-in would be futile. It’s not like we need the bones to be there, either.

Why Aren’t Bones Removed Before Cooking?

Boneless meats are easier to cut and serve, and when you have gauchos wielding their fancy knives to slice delectable pieces off for you to enjoy, you can see why a bone would get in the way.

So why aren’t bones removed from the cuts that still have them?

Mostly, it comes down to three things.

First is convenience. Something like beef ribs, when cooked slowly over the fire, renders their connective tissues down into flavor and becomes extremely tender. If you’ve ever had good beef ribs, you know the bones basically slide right out of the meat.

That’s after cooking; before cooking, those bones are firmly attached, and to try to get the meat off the bone before cooking it would leave you with a mess. You’d waste a lot of meat leaving bits on the bones, or you’d risk getting bits of bone in the meat, and that’s worse than whole ribs by a long shot.

When you think of some of the other meats we serve, you can also imagine how much work it would be to remove the bones for very little benefit. In particular, consider the Parmesan drumettes. Without the central bone, they’d basically be chicken nuggets, right? You don’t really gain anything by removing the bone, but you lose a lot to labor.

The second reason is presentation. Some meats that come on the bone would look mangled and messy if the bone were removed first. Others, like lamb chops, would leave you with tiny medallions that seem a lot less worth it when you see them. They’d be no less delicious, of course, but they’d feel less elegant and refined.

The third reason is the patterns in cooking. We’re well-versed in cooking these bone-in meats, but when you remove the bone, you remove a thermal mass and an insulator. Some of the texture and flavor come from in and around the bone, and if you strip that out, the whole thing changes.

Out of all of this, it really is just the convenience factor that makes the choice. Why pay someone to pull the meat from the bone when leaving the bone in doesn’t hurt anything? Why buy more expensive boneless meat that has been even more processed when you can just cook it with the bone right there?

There’s also a secret that butchers know, but many home cooks don’t: sometimes, we serve both.

Take, for example, the T-bone or Porterhouse steak. Did you know that this is actually four different cuts, but at the same time, it’s all just one cut?

Imagine if you took a bunch of T-bone steaks and stacked them all up so the T-shaped bones lined up. Well, that’s how they are in the animal! When you see it whole, you get a picture of what it looks like.

This piece of meat, the short loin, can be cut in different ways. When you slice it across the bone, you end up with the iconic T-shaped bone separating two distinct pieces of meat.

That T-shaped bone isn’t all uniform, though, nor is the meat around it. IT tapers from one side to the other. On the more tapered side, the cuts are smaller, and that’s what we call a T-bone steak. On the other side, the bone and meat are larger, and that’s what gets called the porterhouse.

But it goes further than that. Look again at a T-bone steak. On one side of the T, you have a larger strip of steak. That strip is rich and flavorful, full of the inherent beefy goodness we all love in our meat. On the other side is a smaller medallion of meat, which is usually much more tender and milder in flavor, almost buttery from marbling.

The larger piece? That’s a NY Strip. The smaller one? That’s the tenderloin. When that piece of tenderloin is cut larger and away from the bone, it’s called a filet mignon.

Processed in different ways, this one cut of meat can be called four or more different things.

All of that is to say, it’s a fact that we serve not just meat with and without the bone, but we often serve the same cut with and without the bone. They just have different names, because that’s how butchery works.

What Are the Best Boneless and Bone-In Cuts?

Every cut is special in its own way, and they all have pros and cons that make them a great culinary experience. We love all our cuts equally, so it’s hard to choose a favorite, right?

Well, not quite. After all, one of them has emerged as Brazil’s favorite cut of meat, hands-down.

That cut is the boneless picanha. Picanha comes from the top of the rump, and it’s actually far enough away from the nearest bone that there’s a whole other cut in between it and the nearest bone! You can’t get picanha with a bone, because no such thing exists.

There are a few other cuts in the boneless category that everybody loves.

Filet mignon is a big one. Viewed as one of those expensive, high-class, delectable cuts of meat, it’s a little more accessible than some people realize, what with it being part and parcel of the porterhouse. Of course, it’s still rare, delectable, and valuable, since there are only a few short inches of meat that can be considered a filet mignon out of an entire cow. Its scarcity makes it a rarity!

On the opposite end of the spectrum is fraldinha, the flank steak. These steaks are large and sheet-like, and need to be both cooked and cut properly to make sure they’re tender and delicious. Cutting with the grain instead of against it leaves you with a stringier and chewier piece of meat. It will still be flavorful, since fraldinha is a well-marbled piece of meat, but it’s a better experience when it’s cut across the grain.

A third boneless favorite is simply the sirloin. The workhorse cut of meat (no horse involved, of course), the sirloin comes from the same broad area as the picanha: the rump. It’s a good mixture of flavor and tenderness without being too small or expensive like some of the smaller cuts. It’s one of the most commonly grilled meats in America, and for good reason.

What about the flip side? The bone-in cuts are also delicious, and no less fascinating just because they have a bone in them.

We’ve already mentioned the T-bone and porterhouse duo. We don’t actually offer those, since their shape makes them ideal for on-the-grill or in-the-pan frying rather than cooking on a skewer over open flame. It’s better, in our view, to take the strip and filet and cook those separately.

That goes doubly true in a churrascaria where rodizio is the style. You don’t want a whole T-bone when gauchos are coming by with cut after cut to try, right? You’d overload yourself with just the one, and then you’d miss out on a lot of the experience. While they’re great steaks for a more traditional American steakhouse, you won’t find them at a Brazilian churrascaria.

What you will find, though, is beef ribs. Beef ribs are incredible. The tender, delicious meat in between each rib (both full ribs and short ribs) is very flavorful and rich, but without cooking them the right way, they end up being a lot of work to handle.

We always love showing off our beef ribs to our customers, because they’re one area where Brazilian meats differ a lot from American meats. In America, when you get beef ribs, you’re generally getting something slow-braised or cooked to the point of falling off the bone, saturated in wood smoke like hickory or mesquite, and slathered in a sauce. Americans take great pride in their BBQ sauces, after all.

In Brazil, though, we love the meat for what it is, not for what it carries. The flavor of beef ribs is delicious, and those sauces cover it up! Some Brazilians will go so far as to call it a travesty. We won’t (every food culture is valid), but we still highly recommend giving the beef ribs a try.

See, when we cook beef ribs, they’re cooked slowly over the flame to render down that connective tissue. But, unlike American cooking, they’re still cooked on skewers, and they’re seasoned with little more than just sal grosso, the Brazilian coarse salt we use for churrasco.

There are also bone-in cuts that go beyond the beef.

• Lamb. Lamb comes in two forms in our churrascarias, both of which have a bone featured prominently. The first is the small, almost lollipop-like lamb chops, small medallions of tasty and tender meat on a bone. The other is the much, much larger leg of lamb, carried on the single central bone, where slices can be cut off for diners, and the remainder returned for another round of cooking.
• Chicken. We actually offer chicken in both bone-in (Parmesan drumettes) and boneless (bacon-wrapped chicken breast) varieties. You’re probably familiar with chicken as much or more than anything else on our list, so there’s not much more to say about it, right?
• Pork. Much like beef ribs, we also offer pork ribs, though they do have a sauce. Like we said, it’s the beef we consider the star: the pork can enjoy the sauce all it likes.

See? Like we said up top, there can be a surprising amount of depth to these seemingly simple questions. Who among you knew that there was so much variety to the bone-in and boneless cuts of meat you can find at a churrascaria?

We’d love to show you first-hand, too. Find your nearest Texas de Brazil location and stop on in! We’re always ready to give you a taste of Brazilian cuisine without leaving the comfort zone of an American restaurant. You can book a reservation right here on our website, call ahead, or just stop in. Whatever you do, we look forward to seeing you!

When you think of sauces in Brazil, your first thought is probably a green sauce like chimichurri. We do love our green sauce, but there’s a lot more on the menu than just the herbaceous blend. In fact, another classic that you can find just about everywhere is the Brazilian vinaigrette.

Known in Brazilian Portuguese as Molho a Campanha, the Brazilian vinaigrette is unlike what you might be thinking when you picture a vinaigrette dressing. When you think of that term, you probably think of an oil-and-vinegar base for a salad dressing, usually mixed with herbs, garlic, or some other flavors like fruits.

The Brazilian vinaigrette is very different, so let’s talk about it, where it comes from, and why you should give it a try.

What is Brazilian Vinaigrette?

First of all, a Brazilian vinaigrette is very different from the vinaigrette dressings you usually see carrying the name. Instead, it’s more of a salsa and has more in common with something like pico de gallo than anything. It’s also known as a sauce, a condiment, or even a slaw.

So why does it have the name vinaigrette?

It actually doesn’t! Well, not really. It’s a quirk of language.

While a lot of recipes online call it a Brazilian vinaigrette, the actual word used for it in Brazil is vinagrete. Vinagrete is the Portuguese version of the word, but it’s not really used the same way vinaigrette is used, and instead just references this one condiment.

This also has to do with the Brazilian tendency to name foods after one of their primary ingredients. You’ll also, for example, see a lot of things known as “maionese a [something]”, such as potato salad, maionese de batata. Since mayonnaise is a key ingredient, it gets the name.

A lot of different condiments and dressings take on the name vinaigrette, and it’s all because of the eponymous ingredient: vinegar. It’s more of a modern understanding that the name vinaigrette has solidified to be synonymous with the salad dressing. There’s even a whole salad, including beets, potatoes, pickles, and more, in Russia, named vinegret.

All of this is to say that Brazilian vinaigrette, or vinagrete, is more of a salad than a dressing. Vinegar is a primary component, but there are more flavors besides, and the texture is just as important.

There’s one more name for Brazilian vinaigrette, and it’s the English translation of molho a campanha: campaign sauce. Why? It’s not really clear. Maybe it originated in Campanha, a parish located in Porto, Portugal. Or maybe it originated in Campanha, a town in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Or maybe it just took on the name through some other history. There’s no clear origin here, so we can’t give you much.

What we CAN give you is an excellent recipe for molho a campanha, so you can make some yourself.

How to Make Brazilian Vinaigrette: The Ingredients

Like a lot of recipes in Brazil, the molho a campanha is a very flexible and customizable recipe. In fact, the core recipe only has a few ingredients.

• Tomatoes. Every Brazilian vinaigrette is packed with diced tomatoes, and with good reason. The tart and tangy nature of tomatoes brings a light crispness to the condiment that pairs exceptionally well with anything you want to put it on. Roma tomatoes work best because they have more flesh and less liquid and seeds, so you get more texture.
• Onion. There are a lot of different kinds of onions out there, but you’ll usually want to err on the side of a sweeter onion, like a white onion, or a pungent onion, like a red onion. More powerful Spanish onions are also acceptable, but you may adjust other flavors to suit the strength of the onion.
• Bell Pepper. Red or green, or both! You can also use orange or yellow, though those tend to be sweeter in flavor. Green gives you the best contrast of color from the tomato, if that’s important to you. Bell pepper adds a freshness and crisp texture that contrasts nicely with the softer tomato and the crunchier onion.
• Oil. Pretty much every version of Brazilian vinaigrette you find is going to call for olive oil. While you could use a more neutral oil, this is a key flavor too, so a flavorful extra-virgin olive oil works the best by far.
• Vinegar. Most recipes are going to call for either plain distilled white vinegar or, more frequently, white wine vinegar. Very rarely will you see a recipe calling for a different kind of vinegar, and those aren’t generally seen as authentic. White wine vinegar will give you that punchy acidic flavor without too many other things getting in the way, like a balsamic would.

There’s one more core ingredient, and that’s an herb. Most of the time, the choice of herb is going to be fresh parsley. Getting some fresh flat-leafed Italian parsley is perfect for the recipe, while the dried stuff won’t work nearly as well.

Sometimes, though, the herb of choice is cilantro. This is a more pungent herb and stands up more to the mixture of flavors, but also, it’s cilantro. Some people just genetically can’t handle cilantro, and that inherently limits your audience. Most Brazilian vinaigrettes will use parsley for that reason.

Finally, you can round it out with a dash of salt and a hit of pepper. You don’t want too much pepper (and some recipes leave it out entirely, because it’s easily overlooked in the finished dish), and the salt serves to enhance the rest of the flavors rather than to taste salty. Remember, when you add the salt, it will continue to dissolve and add to the condiment for quite a while, so taste it both as you’re adding it and before you serve to adjust.

Fun fact: certain regional variations of the condiment don’t even include the peppers! Specifically, the version you see most often in Sao Paulo leaves them out. Some people also add something like serrano or jalapeno peppers as well, but that’s more of a non-Brazilian variant, and spicy besides. Since Brazilians generally don’t care for spicy foods, we tend to stick with the bell peppers.

Optional Additional Ingredients

You already have a lot of flexibility to change up your ingredients, but there are some people who go one step further and add other things to their molho a campanha.

Are they wrong to do so? Of course not. Food should be a joy, and if it brings you joy to add other things to your condiments, then by all means do so.

Is it still an authentic Brazilian vinaigrette if you add other things? Well, not really. You might still find these variations here and there throughout Brazil, but they’ll be more like a restaurant’s “secret sauce” style of variation, something they knowingly do to set themselves apart.

What kinds of add-ins or changes can you do?

• Spicy peppers. As mentioned above, the spice lovers in the audience might prefer something with a little more kick to it, and add serrano or jalapeno peppers to the mix. You could even go as far as to use the Brazilian malagueta peppers, but then you’re in for a lot of heat.
• Lime. Some recipes call for the zest of a lime, while others add both zest and juice. This brings the flavor profile a lot closer to the Mexican pico de gallo, which uses lime to draw out the other flavors. It’s definitely delicious, and augments the tanginess of the finished condiment, but it’s certainly not authentic.
• Olives. Adding green olives brings an entirely new salty and briny dimension to the finished condiment. It’s something we do in one of our recipes, and we find the umami and salty elements really add to the finished blend.
• Garlic. Either a finely minced clove of garlic or some garlic powder can also bring the classic flavor of garlic to the forefront. It’s probably one of the biggest departures, but we know a lot of people love their garlic, and who are we to deny them the delicious flavor?
• Corn. We’ve seen some people add fresh sweet corn to their vinaigrette. It’s sweet and another new texture, so give it a try if you like. You’ll definitely end up with something more like salsa if you do, though.

We’re sticking with the authentic recipe today, but always remember you can add whatever you like; it’s your sauce, after all!

How to Make Brazilian Vinaigrette: The Process

To make your own batch of Brazilian vinaigrette, all you need to do is follow a pretty simple process.

First, gather your ingredients. For this, we’ll use:

• 4 Roma Tomatoes
• 1 Bell Pepper
• 1 Small Onion
• 1/3 Cup Parsley
• 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup White Wine Vinegar
• Salt and Black Pepper

The exact amounts of each of the veggies don’t matter too much, so if you want to add more tomato, or less onion, or half an extra bell pepper, go for it.

Now, prepare your ingredients.

• Dice the tomatoes into small pieces.
• Remove the stem and seeds from the bell pepper and dice it to about the same size as the tomato.
• Remove the outer paper from the onion and dice it into pieces about the same size as the tomato.
• Chop the parsley into a coarse chop.

The smaller you dice the veggies here, the more even your final condiment will be. Larger chunks mean you can get bites that don’t have all the elements, and that’s kind of sad. Think salsa and cut to size appropriately.

Combine your chopped veggies in a bowl and mix them up so they’re more or less evenly distributed.

Next, mix together the oil and vinegar. You don’t need to whip this up into an emulsion, but mixing it a little helps it spread more evenly through your condiment. Pour this mixture over your veggies and stir it all up.

Add a dash of salt and some pepper. Stir and taste it, and add more if you want. Remember, the flavors will mix and get stronger as they sit, so don’t overdo it!

You can serve the mix immediately, but it really works best if you let it rest so the flavors mix and combine. 15-20 minutes should be your bare minimum, but for a really tasty molho, let it sit for at least an hour.

How to Enjoy Brazilian Vinaigrette

However you like! It’s a traditional condiment served alongside churrasco, so when you’re having some grilled meats, add a bit to a bite and see how it tastes. It’s also commonly served alongside feijoada. It’s also often added to bread and eaten sort of like a Brazilian bruschetta, usually because we want to eat some of that deliciousness while we wait for the meat to cook.

The key is that Brazilian vinaigrette is bright, crisp, fresh, and tangy. That means it pairs very well with richer and fattier foods like red meat on the grill or black bean stew. The contrast is what livens it up.

You can also store and serve your molho a campanha for up to three days after you make it, and it’s probably going to be even tastier the next day! After that, your veggies will start to go off, lose their texture, and might get a bit funky, so you probably don’t want to keep it going. Then again, with a recipe like this, it probably won’t make it that long anyway.

Want to pair this tasty Brazilian condiment with an equally Brazilian meat? You’re in luck! Here at Texas de Brazil, we sell Brazil’s favorite cut of beef, the picanha, in our butcher shop. You can buy a few cuts of your own and throw your own backyard Brazilian barbecue! Or, if that’s a bit much, you can also find your nearest Texas de Brazil location and stop by to have us do it for you. We’d love to have you and show you what it’s all about!

Healthy curiosity is a wonderful thing, and when you’re experiencing a new food culture for the first time, asking questions is how you learn.

One question we see a lot relating to Brazilian food is why it seems like there’s always an orange slice or two somewhere in the meal. Sometimes they seem like they’re everywhere (and sometimes they aren’t there, rare as it may be), but they’re certainly a lot more common than most American meals.

So, why do Brazilians serve oranges alongside certain dishes? Do they serve a purpose, or are they more of a garnish? The answer is both a little deeper than you might expect and nothing too unusual as far as ingredients go.

Comparing Food Cultures

The first thing to remember is that there’s really no such thing as “Brazilians” in terms of some unified culture. Brazil is a huge country, nearly as large as the entire United States. People in the northeast have different traditions and food preferences compared to people in the west or further south. It’s a little like asking why Americans like okra so much.

All of this is basically just a preamble and disclaimer. There’s a lot of variance throughout Brazil, and while we’re going to be talking in generalizations, there will always be counterexamples. Don’t stress too much about it, learn what you can, and enjoy the oranges when you’re given the opportunity.

After all, Brazil is the world’s leading producer of oranges, which means we have plenty to go around. And really, who could turn down a fresh tropical orange grown locally? Fresh tropical fruit is a delicacy that is hard to overstate.

Why Oranges?

Why not?

Oranges were first introduced to Brazil as far back as the 1500s, and spread rapidly throughout the northeast because the climate is very good for growing the citrus trees. Oranges are also a great fruit to mix with the other tropical staples native to Brazil, including passionfruit, papaya, and acai.

The orange trade has had some serious ups and downs throughout history, though. When they were introduced, they were quite popular, but they were mostly grown for local use, not regional export. Oranges also played a key role in fending off scurvy in sailors during this era.

One interesting fact is that oranges, as we know them in the United States, and oranges in Brazil are actually a bit different. See, there are three “core” citrus fruits: the True Mandarin, the Citron, and the Pomelo. Every other citrus, including oranges, lemons, and limes, is a crossbreed of these with varying amounts of each. Grapefruits are about 50/50 mandarin and pomelo; lemons are something like 50% citron, 25% mandarin, and 25% pomelo.

Different varieties of oranges are also different proportions of these other fruits, and the varieties popular in different regions are actually different kinds of fruit. The navel orange we find so popular in America was actually a mutation originally found in Brazil. But, they proved to be less useful for juicing than other species, which is why Brazil now grows mostly varieties like Pera and Natal. They’re still oranges, so they won’t be too unfamiliar when you get right down to it, but the differences can be interesting.

In the 70s, oranges exploded in popularity, and Brazil started investing heavily in citrus orchards for export. In particular, orange juice became a prime export, something that still holds true today. In fact, 80% of Brazil’s oranges are pressed into juice today, and a lot of that juice is exported.

In the 90s, various factors, including international demand, caused a drop in prices for oranges, and a lot of orange orchards failed. The ones that carried through to today are some of the biggest companies still growing fruit.

Fun fact! Brazilian oranges, particularly those grown further to the north, are actually mostly green, or a green-yellow or pale yellow color. This is because the vibrant orange color requires the chlorophyll in the rind to break down, and for that to happen, they need to experience colder temperatures or even a frost. Oranges grown further south in Brazil (or further north, in North America) get that orange color because of the temperature swings, but the consistently tropical weather in northern Brazil inhibits it.

For the most part, the popularity of oranges simply has to do with the fact that oranges taste great. A bright citrus tang is a good counterbalance to a lot of the heavier foods Brazilians eat, and orange lends itself well to both sweet and savory dishes, both of which are staples throughout Brazil.

What’s interesting is that the most common ways to enjoy oranges are very different in Brazil compared to places like the United States. Up here in the northern hemisphere, you usually cut an orange into wedges and eat the fruit, or peel it and separate the natural wedges and eat them whole. In Brazil, though, they’re viewed sort of like portable drinks. People will cut little lids off the top, run a knife through the inside to pop the flesh, and suck the juice out of them. They’re like natural little juice boxes!

Of course, oranges, either as juice or as slices of the fruit itself, can be ingredients in other dishes as well. That’s primarily what we’re here to talk about today.

What Dishes Have Oranges in Brazil?

Oranges can be found in a lot of different dishes, but one of the most common has to be feijoada. Feijoada is Brazil’s national dish for a reason, after all.

Feijoada is a hearty, heavy stew. It’s made with black beans flavored with salty smoked meats, topped with farofa, and usually served alongside add-ons like sauteed kale and orange slices.

Feijoada sometimes even has orange in the dish itself, used as a light marinade or added ingredient to the meats. You don’t really taste it in the finished product, but the acidity helps brighten up some of the other flavors, slightly tenderize the smoked and dried meats, and adds some complexity to other flavors. If you’re served two batches of feijoada, one with orange and one without, chances are you’ll be able to tell the difference. Would you be able to tell that orange was used? Probably not.

When served alongside a dish like feijoada, orange can serve a few purposes. It’s actually somewhat similar to pineapple, though not quite the same, since oranges don’t have the same enzymes in them.

Oranges are a common addition to breakfast food, both as fruit to eat and as juice to drink. Cocktails also frequently feature orange as a flavor, including the ever-popular caipirinha.

Though not exactly served alongside, Brazil also has a pretty famous orange cake made primarily with oranges. It’s delicious and definitely worth a try.

Orange juice is also, as mentioned, a primary export of Brazil. That means it’s cheap and plentiful, so it’s widely available basically everywhere. Many Brazilian restaurants offer orange juice as a cheap beverage option, and it’s a very popular choice.

Aromatic and Flavor Depth

One of the most obvious reasons why oranges are served alongside feijoada and similar dishes is to add a bit of aromatic complexity to the assembly. Even if you don’t eat the orange, the smell will be present. Cutting an orange releases the essential oils in the rind, as well as the juice from the cut flesh. Your nose will pick up on that, even if you don’t consciously place it as a strong orange smell. That perky citrus scent can add a lot of appeal to a dish.

Orange can also go well with spice. While spice isn’t super popular in Brazil, the Bahia region in the northeast is the center of spicy foods largely imported from Northern Africa, and it’s also prime citrus-growing terrain. It’s no surprise that orange-and-spice dishes aren’t uncommon.

Palate Cleansing

Another benefit of orange, alongside a rich, heavy dish like feijoada, is as a palate cleanser. When you eat something that heavy, it “sticks to your ribs,” as they say. It can leave you feeling full, and leave the inside of your mouth, your nasal cavities, and the back of your throat all thoroughly saturated with the flavors of that dish.

If you then eat an orange slice, you break through a lot of that. The aroma of the orange goes up the nasal cavities and freshens them up. The acidity and tang of the juice cleans the mouth and throat, to prime you for further food.

Since Brazilian meals ( especially lunch) tend to be the heaviest meals, being able to brighten up between foods and pack in more nutrition to finish off the day is beneficial.

This isn’t just mental, either. The acidity of the orange slices can strip and break down some of the lingering fats from heavier meat-centric dishes like feijoada or churrasco, making you feel less worn down by the act of eating it all. It’s similar in a sense to things like the pickled ginger served alongside many Asian meals. For that matter, Chinese food also often comes with orange wedges for the same purposes.

Digestive Aid

Another reason you might see oranges served alongside meals, especially meaty and fatty meals, is that they can serve as a digestive aid.

This probably started out as much as a folk remedy as anything. An orange with a heavy meal can aid in feeling good after the meal, and when people noticed that, it started to become more popular to serve an orange alongside those kinds of foods.

Scientific study actually backs this up. Oranges have a lot of dietary fiber in them, which helps with nutrient absorption, so you get more out of your food. The acid content can also aid in digestion by breaking down fats and proteins faster than your stomach acid alone.

Are the Oranges Mandatory for Enjoying Brazilian Food?

So, if you’re handed a Brazilian dish with oranges, do you really have to eat them to get the most out of the food? If they give you a dish that doesn’t have orange, should you ask for some?

It’s truly up to you. Brazilian food is broad and varied, and only some of it has oranges as a critical component. Even the feijoada, though it has a traditional set of orange slices alongside it, isn’t going to lose anything significant if you don’t have them. The bulk of the meal is there, with or without the orange.

If you don’t like oranges, feel free to skip them. If you don’t think you need the palate cleanser, don’t worry about it. If oranges are too acidic and upset your stomach, you aren’t going to miss out by not giving yourself a bellyache when you eat.

The key to Brazilian food, like the key to food everywhere around the world, is to enjoy it as much as you can. Try new things, experience new cultures, but don’t force yourself to do something you definitely don’t like and can’t stand just because it’s the way it’s done. There’s a balance to be found.

If you want to experience Brazilian food culture in a unique way, without stepping too far outside of your comfort zone, come on down to your nearest Texas de Brazil. We’ve worked hard to bring traditional Brazilian food, like churrasco, feijoada, farofa, pao de queijo, and more, to American audiences. We’re certain that you’ll love what you have, but you don’t have to go on a deep dive into Brazilian food culture just to try it out.

All you need to do is stop by. You can call ahead for a reservation (or make one directly from our website), or just swing in when we’re open. We do highly recommend joining our eClub for exclusive deals to make your trip even more worthwhile, too.

Enjoy some delicious grilled meats, try out the black bean stew, experience what all the fuss is about with farofa, and yes, enjoy a slice or two of orange in between plates. We’re sure you’ll love it!

Have you ever had a grilled cheese?

No, not the sandwich, though those are obviously delicious. We’re talking about a slab of cheese, slapped on a grill, seared to a gooey perfection, and served.

If you haven’t, you’re missing out, and if you have, it’s no wonder you’re here to learn more.

Espetinhos de Queijo de Coalho is a particular kind of Brazilian cheese that lends itself exceptionally well to this treatment. Large chunks of the cheese are cut into rectangles, skewered, and grilled. The end result is a crisp, salty crust on the outside made perfect by the Maillard reaction, and a gooey, chewy interior of decadent dairy. Served with a sweet drizzle like a honey sauce or molasses, it’s a favorite snack in Brazil for a very good reason.

Let’s dig deep into all you need to know to enjoy this treat, and even make it yourself at home.

Breaking Down the Name

First, a little trivia. Espetinhos de queijo de coalho is a very straightforward set of Brazilian Portuguese words.

It’s simple:

• Queijo, which you may know from pao de queijo, simply means “cheese”.
• Coalho is the specific name of the kind of cheese used in this recipe. It actually means “curd cheese”!
• Espetinhos means “skewers,” which is the way this cheese is grilled.

Now you know, in case it ever comes up at trivia night!

Coalho: A Brazilian Favorite Cheese

Coalho is a specific kind of cheese produced in Brazil, though it’s similar to a bunch of cheeses found all around the world. That’s good news, because you might not be able to find true coalho where you live, but you can almost definitely find a cheese similar enough to make your own imitation.

What makes this cheese unique?

First of all, it’s described in a handful of ways based on its attributes. It’s a curd cheese, and a squeaky cheese, something you might be familiar with if you enjoy fried cheese curds, poutine, or even fresh cheese curds. It’s not actually cheese curds, in quite the same way, but it’s very similar in texture. It’s also known as a rennet cheese.

It’s a cow’s milk cheese, which should come as no surprise, given how heavily invested in cattle the nation of Brazil is.

Texturally, the cheese is fairly soft and holds together well. It doesn’t crumble apart the way something like a Parmesan or an aged cheddar would.

The flavor of the cheese is fairly mild and salty. The mild flavor makes it great for eating, and grilling it enhances the saltiness of the outer layer. This pairs exceptionally well with both sweet and savory toppings.

The most important element of this cheese is the fact that it’s a grilling cheese, which means it has a high melting point. It withstands heat very well and takes on a caramelization to the exterior much more readily than some other cheeses, while being harder to burn.

Can’t Find Coalho? Here Are Some Alternatives

A simple rennet/curd cheese made from cow’s milk is a staple all around the world, anywhere that cow’s milk is used to make cheese. If you can’t find coalho locally, you can easily substitute it with a similar cheese from a different location.

Halloumi. This is a cheese that is produced in Cyprus; in fact, Cyprus has the trademark on the name Halloumi. Even if a cheese is produced in the exact same way, if it’s made somewhere else, it can’t use the name. Interestingly, though it’s texturally nearly identical to coalho and has a very similar flavor, Halloumi is made with a combination of goat’s milk and sheep’s milk, not cow’s milk. It’s the go-to grilling cheese for many places around the world, because of the same dense-but-soft texture and high melting point as coalho.

Kasseri. Another Greek cheese, Kasseri, is another cheese commonly used in grilling because of its consistency and high melting point. It’s also a mixture of sheep’s and goat’s milk, though it’s made in different regions. If you’ve ever been to a Greek restaurant and had a plate of saganaki (the pan-fried cheese appetizer), you’ve probably had Kasseri.

Paneer. This cheese is a bit more like something like Mozzarella, made with cow’s milk or buffalo’s milk. It’s a softer cheese than the others, but it’s acid-set, so it’s still fairly firm and has a high melting point. In fact, it’s called a non-melting cheese. It’s common in Indian foods and has a delicious, tangy flavor.

Queso Fresco. Probably the most readily available of the similar cheeses, at least in the United States, queso fresco is the Mexican variant on the concept of a fresh, firm white cheese. It’s often on the crumbly side, which can make it a pain to grill on a skewer, but the end result is still pretty similar. It’ll do in a pinch, but you’re probably better off looking for some Halloumi instead. If you can find it, queso panela is also a similar option.

While none of these are going to be a perfect replacement, they can get you close enough to enjoy the dish, and that’s a great place to be.

How to Grill Brazilian Coalho Cheese

If you’ve ever made a fried cheese recipe before, you’re probably expecting some sort of process here. Saganaki, for example, requires a layer of flour and a nice hot oil to fry in.

Good news: you don’t need any of that for Brazilian grilled cheese.

Prepare Your Cheese

Prepping the cheese is easy; all you need to do is slice it. Since most of the cheeses outlined above are soft-ish and firm rather than crumbly, they’re relatively easy to cut with just a knife. But if you have a dedicated cheese knife or a cheese wire, you’ll make things a bit easier on yourself.

You want to cut your cheeses into sticks, about one inch wide by three inches long, and about half an inch thick.

Now, the measurements aren’t exact. You don’t want it to be too thin, because then it will over-melt and can drip right through the grill. But, you don’t want it too thick, or the outside will burn before the inside is fully melty and soft.

As far as width and length go, that’s preference. The one-by-three shape is ideal for quick snacking, but you can make longer sticks to enjoy on their own, or even grill up a whole slab of it to cut and serve later. Individual sticks are easier to skewer and handle than a whole slab, though.

Fire Up the Grill

If you’re familiar with Brazilian churrasco and you’re worried that you’re going to need a super high-heat open flame like with our incredible grilled meats, you can set those fears aside. In fact, espetinhos de queijo de coalho doesn’t need the churrasco setup, and can be done on your standard gas or charcoal grill, or even in a grill pan on a stove.

And, despite being on skewers, you don’t need to hold the cheese away from a surface. We’re actually looking for the grill marks here, so a grill or grating is perfect.

You want your grill to be on medium-high heat, somewhere in the 350-degree range. You aren’t going to ruin it if you’re as low as 300 (it’ll just take longer) or as high as 450 (it’ll be quick, so thinner slices might be better here). The key is to watch the cheese and adjust the heat as necessary.

When you’re ready to grill the cheese, use a brush to brush a high smoke-point oil over the grill surface so the cheese doesn’t stick and end up a problem to remove.

Skewer Your Cheese

Skewering the cheese is the key to preparing this delectable dish.

The first option is a metal skewer. Metal skewers are durable, long-lasting, and easy to handle, though they can get very hot and might require gloves or other heat-resistant items to handle them.

If you don’t want to buy a set of metal skewers, the most common option is wooden skewers. They’re cheap, plentiful, and you don’t have to worry about tossing them when you’re done.

There is, however, a trick to using wooden skewers. You need to soak them in water for at least 20-30 minutes, then let them dry for a couple of extra minutes to ensure ease of handling. This prevents them from just burning away and leaving you with cheese you can’t handle.

Grill! That! Cheese!

Now comes the action! Put those skewered cheese chunks on the grill. Usually, the best way is to put them at a 45-degree angle to the grill itself, so you get nice, diagonal grill marks.

Leave the cheese in place for 2-3 minutes (or more, if your temperature is on the lower end), and try not to move it. You’re looking for the exterior of the cheese to start melting, and the heat to caramelize and crust it up. The grill marks are easily one of the best parts of this snack, so it’s critical to get them! Just pay attention and try to avoid letting the cheese burn.

Once one side is nicely grilled, flip the cheese and do the other side for a similar amount of time.

When the cheese skewers are done, move them to a baking sheet or plate, whatever you like. If you want, you can sprinkle them with a bit of kosher salt, though if you’re using a saltier base cheese, you might not need to.

Prepare a Drizzle

The thing that kicks espetinhos de queijo de coalho into overdrive is the drizzle. While the cheese is definitely delicious on its own, it really becomes something special when you drizzle it or dip it in a topping. There are a ton of different options, depending on where in Brazil you are and what you prefer from your cheese snacks.

Some favorites include:

• Honey. A simple drizzle of honey helps some sweetness augment the savory and salty elements of the cheese wonderfully.
• Molasses. A light molasses is similar to honey, but with a darker, richer kind of flavor. For an added twist, you can use a pomegranate molasses as well!
• Herbed oil. Oregano in olive oil makes for a savory herbal topping that brings the cheese to a whole new dimension.
• Garlic. Minced garlic in oil, or minced garlic added to an herbed oil, is another favorite savory option.

Brazilians, as you might know, absolutely love our sweets, so the sweeter options tend to be common. Up here in the states, though, you might prefer the herbal versions. Truthfully? We think it’s best to prepare a few different options, or make the recipe more than once, to experience the possibilities of a delicious grilled cheese.

Bonus: When you grill the cheese, cut it down to smaller bite-sized pieces and alternate with chunks of pineapple on the grill. Eating the two together is absolutely divine!

Bonus 2: For another Brazilian flair, sprinkle the finished cheese with a pinch or two of farofa. The mild and nutty crunch of the toasted cassava flour adds another layer to the finished treat.

Looking for More Brazilian Favorites?

While we might not have espetinhos de queijo de coalho on our menu here at Texas de Brazil, we’re full up with a whole bunch of other Brazilian favorites. The churrasco (starring picanha, Brazil’s favorite cut of meat) is just the start. We also offer farofa, feijoada (the famous black bean stew), pao de queijo, plenty of tropical dessert favorites, and even some classic Brazilian cocktails for you to try.

So, if you’re looking to experience the tastes of Brazil, you’ve come to the right place. Just find your nearest location and call or book a reservation online, or just stop in! The continuous dining experience means you’re guaranteed to leave satisfied, and you can try a little of everything without having to jump through hoops or split orders.

Don’t forget to sign up for our eClub before you visit, for special deals and offers exclusive to members. It’s completely free, so there’s no reason not to!

When you visit a Brazilian restaurant for the first time, a lot of what’s on the menu is probably going to be at least somewhat familiar. Sure, you might not know exactly what picanha is, but you know beef is beef. The salad area is full of favorites from potato salad and ciabatta bread to goat cheese terrine and bacon bits.

Now and then, though, you encounter something new. Something like the ever-popular Brazilian cheese bread, pao de queijo, or the staple topping you find everywhere, farofa.

Both of these have something in common. An ingredient you don’t often find in America, and when you do, it’s in a very different form. Something we call a staple in Brazil. That something is cassava flour.

Why do we use cassava flour so much in Brazilian food? Why is it so popular in dishes like farofa and as an ingredient in other foods? The answer may go deeper than you think. There’s a reason why it’s the third-most widely consumed carbohydrate in the tropics, after rice and corn.

What is Cassava Flour?

Cassava flour is a flour made from the root of the cassava plant.

The cassava plant is known by many names. Scientifically, it’s Manihot esculenta, a species in the Euphorbiaceae family, more commonly known as spurges. Common names for cassava that you might also see in ingredients lists or on store shelves include manioc and yuca.

The plant itself isn’t terribly noteworthy except for the long, tuberous root called a storage root. This root is similar to potatoes and other large underground roots, with a brown rind and a starchy white or yellow flesh inside. Individual roots can be as much as four inches wide, tapering like a carrot, and as much as a foot long.

That root is harvested and processed using methods that were developed thousands of years ago to create cassava starch or cassava flour. It can also be processed in many other ways and is a big-time staple in South America.

One interesting fact is that spurges in general are pretty inedible (the name comes from the same root as “to purge” since some varieties were used medicinally to induce vomiting), and cassava is almost no different. Cassava actually contains toxins that can react and produce cyanide. Fortunately, both the cultivation of sweet cassava (which has much less of those molecules) and the processing methods (which remove them) make cassava wholly safe to eat.

How is Cassava Flour Made?

The way cassava flour is made is largely the same as it has been throughout history, though industrialized processes have enabled much larger and faster means of production.

The first step is the harvesting of the cassava roots. The roots are dug up, and the storage roots are harvested. The rest of the plant can be left alone, though, and will grow more storage roots over time, so cassava is a very readily renewable food source.

The tubers, when harvested, need to be processed. They’re first cleaned to get dirt off them (just like you would with potatoes), and the outer rinds are removed. This leaves you with clean, white, starchy flesh, ready to be processed. These roots are soaked, which helps remove the toxic molecules still in them and prevents premature spoilage.

The cassava is then processed, usually by grating, grinding, chipping, or otherwise pulping it. This pulp is then pressed to remove as much moisture as possible, and then it’s left to dry. Traditionally, this would be done using stands where it would be exposed to the sun and the wind, to carry moisture away. More modern processing can use dehydrators and ovens to dry it much faster.

Often, the liquid pressed out of the cassava is also collected. The near-microscopic particles of starch that are carried out with the liquid are allowed to settle in a vessel, and the remaining liquid is poured off. That remaining starch is also collected and sold as tapioca starch. That’s the same tapioca used for food products like tapioca sticks and boba pearls.

Finally, the remaining cassava is processed into flour in one of a few ways. Because, fun fact, there are several different kinds of cassava flour!

First of all, we lightly omitted one detail above: some kinds of cassava flour don’t peel the cassava first. By leaving the outer rind on, certain nutrients are kept in the cassava, and the final texture is a little coarser and richer in fiber. This is typically called farinha de mandioca, or plain cassava flour. It’s also the key to most authentic farofa recipes!

Then there are two kinds of cassava flour made out of the peeled cassava. These are also commonly known as cassava starch, rather than cassava flour. Or, in Brazilian Portuguese, as Povilho Doce and Povilho Azedo. These are used, individually or in a mixture, in baked goods such as pao de queijo.

Povilho Doce, or sweet cassava flour, is milled into flour immediately when it’s done being dried. The end result is a starchy, sweet, mild-tasting flour that is ideal for baked goods with a soft, fluffy texture.

Povilho Azedo, or sour cassava flour, has one additional step: it’s actually fermented a little before it’s processed. This fermentation process leaves you with something similar to how milk is different from kefir: a slightly tangy, slightly sour, molecularly different kind of material. In the case of cassava, this leaves the flour with a more potent flavor and a more elastic structure, which gives baked goods a chewier, stretchier kind of bite.

Why is Cassava Flour so Popular in Brazil?

Simply put, it’s a staple.

Cassava is native to Brazil, but its versatility, ability to grow quickly in a lot of different kinds of soil, and hardiness against drought have made it a popular cultivar throughout Asia and northern Africa as well.

Beyond that, cassava can be used in a whole lot of different ways. The flour is a popular and common option, but it can also be used for a ton of other foods.

• In Cuba, it’s boiled and topped with onions and garlic-infused olive oil. It can also be made into something similar to French fries.
• In Haiti, bread made with cassava is topped with peanut butter or milk for a sweet treat.
• In the Dominican Republic, cassava is grated and shaped into a croquette, stuffed with meat or cheese, and fried. It’s also a main ingredient in a popular stew known as Sancocho.
• In Puerto Rico, it’s ground into a paste and used as an ingredient in dishes similar to the Mexican tamale.
• In El Salvador, cassava is fried and served with a topping similar to cole slaw and pork rinds.

In Brazil, in addition to classics like farofa and pao de queijo, cassava is also fried and salted as a fry-like snack, infused into soups and stews to thicken and add heartiness to a meal, and even fried up into something similar to a tortilla and topped with all manner of ingredients.

There’s even a traditional dessert using tapioca pearls cooked with cinnamon and cloves in red wine, and served cold; one of the many sweet treats Brazilians absolutely adore.

And all of that is just food! Cassava is also used in a lot of other ways. It has uses in pharmaceuticals, in paper manufacturing, and even as an ingredient in biodegradable plastic alternatives. It’s used in bioethanol production and as animal feed as well. It truly is an immensely flexible plant.

A Look at the History of Cassava

A big part of why cassava is so popular in Brazil is because it’s native to Brazil. The first examples of domesticated cassava come from around 10,000 years ago, and by 6,600 years ago, it was widely spread throughout the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and throughout South America.

Deliberately cultivated cassava is at least 1,400 years old, with evidence from Mayan archaeological sites pointing to its use in El Salvador. It’s likely that it has been cultivated even longer down in Brazil itself. It’s even commonly portrayed in art, especially by the indigenous Moche people.

During the colonial era, occupiers from Spain didn’t like cassava, viewing it as potentially dangerous and not nutritious. This is when wheat, in particular, was largely imported. Nevertheless, cassava consumption continued, both because imports of wheat were expensive and unavailable to Brazilian natives (and slaves), and because traditions carry forward regardless.

Really, it’s no wonder why it’s so prominent throughout the region. It’s readily available, it’s renewable, it’s nutritious, and it’s cheap. What more could you ask for?

Fun fact: despite its origins and popularity in Brazil, the leader of cassava production globally is actually Nigeria, where conditions make it an extremely viable crop. Nigeria produces around 18% of the world’s total cassava.

Does Cassava Flour Have Health Benefits?

The answer here depends on your perspective.

Is cassava a superfood? Hardly. 100 grams of cassava is made up of 38 grams of carbohydrates and 60 grams of water, with the rest made up of dietary fiber and sugars, with only the barest hint of protein and fat. It has very little in the way of micronutrients beyond a reasonable amount of vitamin C.

Cassava is a staple carbohydrate. Since carbs are a key part of the diet necessary to live, they are a critical element of the diets of cultures stretching back millennia.

Despite that, there are some benefits to cassava as far as food goes.

• It’s low in allergens. It’s quite rare for anyone to be allergic to cassava, and when they are, it’s largely because of a molecular similarity between cassava and latex, so it can trigger latex allergies.
• It serves the purpose of a flour in baking, but unlike wheat flour, it’s gluten-free. This is excellent for people who need to avoid gluten for one reason or another, including intolerance and celiac disease.
• The starch in cassava is a prebiotic, which means it feeds the good bacteria present in the gut, while helping starve out the bad bacteria that cause metabolic problems and inflammation.

You aren’t going to be adding a spoonful of cassava flour to a superfood smoothie (unless you want it for the texture), but that’s okay. The bread you make with it, and the other recipes you can make, are an excellent trade-off.

Using Cassava Flour

Interested in trying out cassava flour for yourself? Great! You have a lot of options.

First of all, you can try your hand at making Brazilian staples like farofa and pao de queijo. As some of the most popular ways to use cassava, they’re delicious, relatively easy to make, and a great way to experience Brazilian food culture.

You can also experiment with using cassava flour as a replacement for wheat flour in any baking recipe you like. It will leave you with a different texture, for sure (something a little chewier, probably), but there’s nothing wrong with that. Start by replacing 1 cup of flour with about 3/4ths of a cup of cassava flour. Cassava flour absorbs more moisture than wheat flour, and ends up denser, so if you were to 1:1 replace it, you’d end up with a much heavier end result.

You can even try your hand at making cassava flour at home! Then you’re really getting into it.

Our recommendation, though, is a lot easier. Why not find your nearest Texas de Brazil location and stop on in? We have several cassava-bearing favorites, from Brazilian cheese bread to farofa, along with familiar foods and delicious meats that are sure to sate your appetite, no matter how big it is. You can make a reservation directly on our website or give us a call, as well.

Before you stop in, be sure to sign up for our eClub. You get a great introductory offer, coupons and deals regularly, and more.

Don’t forget that we also offer catering! Whether you’re planning a big event (Thanksgiving is coming up) or just have a lot of friends and family over, we can bring all your favorites right to you.

Whatever you choose, we’re sure you’ll enjoy your foray into cassava, and you’ll definitely love the experience of rodizio at Texas de Brazil.

In any culture around the world where there are both bread and cheese, it’s inevitable that someone will combine them into the incredible culinary delight that is cheese bread. Brazil is no different, and our Brazilian cheesy bread (known in Brazilian Portuguese as pao de queijo) is an absolute treat.

What makes the Brazilian twist on cheese bread so special? Is there a science behind it? Let’s dig in. Be warned, though: by the end of this post, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to want to try it yourself. If you can’t get the ingredients to make it yourself, find your nearest Texas de Brazil location; we always have it on hand.

Starting Simple: What is Pão de Queijo?

Let’s start at the basics: what even is this Brazilian cheese bread?

Put simply, it’s just a small cheesy roll made with the local grain flour, cassava/tapioca flour. It’s always served in the form of small rolls, laced with cheese and baked to delicious perfection. When you describe it as simply as that, it really doesn’t seem like anything special.

The Key Elements of Brazilian Cheese Bread

So, what is it? What makes Brazilian cheese bread so special?

The Form Factor

Brazilian cheese bread is more like a roll than a loaf. It’s made by making a large batch of dough, then dividing that dough into small balls. They actually come in many sizes, from the tiniest 15-gram coquetel (or cocktail size), the 20-30-gram tradicional, the 70-gram lance grande (or “big snack” size), or the enormous 100-gram rolls.

What you never find, though, is a whole loaf of pao de queijo. That’s because a big part of what makes them what they are is the crisp outside compared to the soft and chewy inside, and you don’t get that contrast in a loaf the same way.

The Flour

Brazil is not a land full of wheat, especially not when pao de queijo was invented in the 18th century. Back then, importing wheat was rare and expensive, so local cooks in Brazil had to find an alternative.

In Brazil, one of the main staples is the cassava root. Cassava is a tuber that grows underground, sort of like a potato, and it has a million different uses. It’s a key part of farofa, it’s made into alcohol, and the starch is ground into a flour.

The real trick is, there’s more than one kind of cassava flour (also known as tapioca flour or tapioca starch). Pao de queijo can be made with either one or, for the most robust recipe, a bit of both.

• Povilho Doce. This is the “default” kind of cassava flour, and translates as “sweet cassava starch.” It’s sweet because it’s harvested, dried, and processed immediately. This flour is neutral-tasting with a hint of sweetness and creates a soft, fluffy bread with a tender bite.
• Povilho Azedo. This translates to “sour cassava starch” and is a key part of what makes pao de queijo so special. This form of cassava starch is harvested, but then lightly fermented before it’s dried out. This gives the flour a unique tang, the same sort of fermented tang you would recognize in vinegar. It’s also more elastic as a flour, and gives bread a stretchy, chewy texture.

The combination of these two flours gives pao de queijo a unique texture, a hint of sourness to the sweetness backing the cheese, and a contrasting texture between the crisp exterior and chewy interior that is absolutely divine.

The Cheese

The cheese used for Brazilian pao de queijo is usually a two-part mixture. One is going to be familiar to you: Parmesan, that staple of cheese-based baking. A hard white cheese, Parmesan adds a nuttiness, a sharpness, and a robust flavor to the bread.

The other cheese can vary. The goal is to have a half-cured cheese. Half-cured cheeses are generally white cheeses on the softer side, aged somewhere between 30 and 100 days. They’re not too soft, but not too hard either, and they have a delicate taste with a hint of complexity that comes from the age.

Common cheese choices are:

• Minas Cheese. The Brazilian favorite, Minas cheese, is a cow’s milk cheese that can be found in fresh, half-cured, and full-aged varieties. It has a relatively delicate flavor but with a hint of pungent cheesiness and some saltiness.
• Canastra Cheese. This is another Brazilian-native cheese, similar in many ways to Minas cheese, but with a slightly different flavor profile, and is limited to just a few small areas of production.
• Mozzarella. A slightly aged mozzarella that can be considered half-cured is an ideal substitute for Minas cheese if you can’t find it. Most American recipes are going to use this cheese since it’s so readily available.

There are also other half-cured cheeses you can consider, like Manchego, Fontina, or Provolone. Any relatively mild, half-cured, white cheese is going to be great, but the most authentic version uses Minas cheese.

The Science of Pão de Queijo

We promised science, so let’s talk science.

In the bread you’re used to, the structure comes from one particular aspect of wheat flour: gluten. Gluten is also present in rye and barley, and thus is common in European breads in particular.

Gluten is a complex of proteins that, when mixed with water, are activated. Activated gluten becomes stretchy, and the more you work it, the stretchier and more elastic it gets. That’s what kneading is for: to work the gluten to get the right texture for a loaf of bread.

Well, cassava flour doesn’t have gluten in it. It’s also an unleavened bread! The fluffy structure comes solely from the process, not a chemical reaction along the way.

Note: This makes pao de queijo a gluten-free bread you can enjoy!

Gluten is an important agent for structure in bread, but if it’s missing, how does pao de queijo gain that structure? The secret is a process called gelatinization.

In this case, much like gluten, the process is kick-started with water, but it needs one more ingredient: heat. Heat and water, mixed with cassava starch, cause a reaction. The molecules of starch absorb the water and swell up, and as they absorb more and more water, they eventually burst. But, since it’s a starchy liquid, it’s still very thick and viscous, so you end up with something like a gel.

This gel mixes very well with the proteins from egg and the fats and proteins from the cheeses mixed in, as well as ingredients like oil. All of it together forms a wonderful whole, and baking it brings it to perfection.

This gelatinization process is key for making pao de queijo, and it’s where home bakers are likely to get it wrong in their first attempts.

See, the first step to making pao de queijo is to take the liquid ingredients (water, milk, and oil, generally), and boil them. Once they’re nice and hot, you pour this liquid into the starches and start mixing. The heat activates the starches, and the liquid is readily absorbed. When you get the temperature and proportions right, you end up with a perfect dough.

If you have too little liquid? The starches don’t swell up enough and burst into gel, so you end up with a denser, almost brick-like baked good at the end. The same goes for not enough heat; if you don’t bring the liquids to a boil, or you let it cool too much before mixing it all together, you end up with the same brick-like item.

Conversely, if you add too much liquid, you’ll end up with something a bit more soup-like and a bit less dough-like at the end. It won’t form into dough properly, and you’ll be tempted to add more starch the way you would with a wheat bread, but without heat-activating the starch, it won’t come together properly. You might be able to save it, or you might not.

There’s one more element of science that is critical to the creation of pao de queijo. It’s something we’ve talked about before on this blog, but in the context of meat: the Maillard reaction.

The Maillard reaction is a complex bit of chemistry, involving sugars, amino acids, and heat. In culinary terms, it’s “browning”, the way that heat crisps up and browns certain foods while forming a delicious crust.

In other cheese breads, or in dips and foods topped with cheese, you can get the cheese nice and golden, with a bit of crisp chewiness and a rich flavor. That’s the Maillard reaction at work.

In pao de queijo, the Maillard reaction occurs all around the outside of the bread balls, crisping up the exterior and turning it golden, while elements of cheese on the surface get further browned and delicious. All the while, the interior stays soft and chewy.

Making Your Own Pão de Queijo

If you want to try your hand at making your own pao de queijo, good for you! It’s a tricky process to get right, so be forewarned.

Make sure you’re getting the right kind of tapioca/cassava flour to use, or rather, both kinds. In America, it can be pretty tricky because they aren’t always labeled properly.

Be prepared for a mess. Before the dough fully comes together, it’s going to be extremely sticky, and that means you need to be prepared to work through the whole process at one time.

Ready? Here’s what to gather.

Tools for Baking

You don’t need a ton to make pao de queijo.

For the most part, all you’ll need is:

• A saucepan. This is for heating the liquids to a boil.
• A mixing bowl. You’ll do your mixing in here; unlike wheat breads, you don’t need a surface to knead it on! You do need a large enough bowl to easily contain the dough, though.
• Baking sheets. These dough balls aren’t going to puff up and spread during baking, so you don’t need to use anything fancy like muffin cups or anything, but you do need large enough baking sheets to hold around 30-40 of these tasty orbs.
• A spoon. A sturdy spoon will be essential for the first part of mixing, before you can get your hands into it. You can also use it at the end to help separate balls of dough.

That’s really it! Well, you do still need an oven, of course, and a kitchen scale can help if you want to use weights instead of volume measurements. We’ll provide both below.

Ingredients for Pão de Queijo

The ingredients list is also fairly simple, with the significant caveat of confusion over the starch. So, let’s talk briefly about that.

In America, since tapioca starch and cassava starch (despite being the same thing) come from different culinary cultures, they get labeled in different ways. Generally speaking, you find that:

• Tapioca Starch and Tapioca Flour are the same thing, which will be sweet cassava starch.
• Cassava Starch is the starchy and fine, while Cassava Flour uses more of the root and has a heartier but less fine texture. You can liken it to the difference between AP flour and whole wheat flour.

The goal of this recipe is to use cassava starch (not cassava flour) and, ideally, both sweet and sour varieties. If you can find actual povilho doce and pavilho azedo at a local market or online, definitely do so. Otherwise, tapioca starch, tapioca flour, and cassava starch are all fine (but cassava flour probably isn’t).

You aren’t going to ruin your recipe if you use the wrong one, but it won’t necessarily turn out as good.

So, for the ingredients list:

• 300 grams or 10 oz of sour tapioca starch.
• 200 grams or 7 oz of sweet tapioca starch
• 250 grams or 9 oz of mozzarella (or minas cheese, if you can get it).
• 40 grams or 1.5 oz of Parmesan.
• 150 ml or 5 oz of water.
• 150 ml or 5 oz of milk.
• 150 ml or 5 oz of vegetable oil.
• 3 whole eggs.
• 1 pinch of salt.

Beyond the flour, all of this should be easy to have on hand.

Instructions for Pão de Queijo

Now, how do you make it all?

1. Preheat your oven to 200 °C (about 392°F).
2. Add the water, milk, and oil to your saucepan and bring it to a rolling boil.
3. Mix the flours together in a bowl if using both kinds.
4. Add the hot liquids to the flour and start mixing with a spoon (don’t dive in with your hands or you risk a burn).
5. Once the dough has cooled enough to touch without scalding, lightly coat your hands in oil and start working it together by hand.
6. When the dough has reached the “just warm” stage, add your eggs, cheeses, and salt, and keep working it all together.
7. When the dough has finally come together and isn’t sticking to your hands anymore, you can start dividing it into small (30-gram) balls and spacing them on your trays.
8. Bake these for about 40 minutes, or until nicely golden but not too dark.

When they’re done, remove them from the oven and let them cool a bit before enjoying them warm.

Alternatively, just locate your closest Texas de Brazil and come in to have a taste! You can always try to make them later once you know what you’re after, and we’d love to show you what makes it truly special.

When you hear about Brazilian cuts of meat, the picanha is the star of the show. It’s one of the most unique cuts of meat we have in Brazil, one not generally cut and served by butchers around the world, so it’s something truly special and unique to our culture.

Other cuts of meat tend to be more familiar, though the names you know them by can be very different. One such cut is bife da vazia, a common cut with an uncommon name. What is it, why is it popular, and what can you do with it? Let’s explore the world of Brazilian Bife!

What does Bife da Vazia Mean?

The word “bife” in Portuguese is exactly what it sounds like: beef. Meanwhile, “da vazia” refers to the specific cut. A direct translation is “of the void”, but that doesn’t really help anything. A colloquial translation is more helpful: flank steak.

What cut of Meat is Bife da Vazia?

It’s flank! But there’s a bit of confusion here.

Generally speaking, the bife da vazia is a cut of meat we in America know as the flank steak. But the meanings aren’t always accurate, and there’s some confusion between different cuts.

Specifically, some people get this cut confused with another cut, which is similar in texture and presentation but from a different area of the cow, and this confusion has propagated throughout a number of resources online.

That is, some people confuse flank steak and flap steak. Flap steak, the cut known as fraldinha in Brazil, is actually from a little higher up on the cow in the bottom loin. Bife da vazia, meanwhile, is from lower down below the short loin and near the plate.

Sometimes you’ll see references to bife da vazia as a cut of sirloin, but this is incorrect. Though the end result can be similar, bife da vazia is a different cut from the sirloin-region fraldinha.

You might also see references to bife de vazia or bife do vazio. These are all the same thing; the specific vowel used doesn’t really matter in this case, it’s just a matter of English not quite having the right letters to convey the specific vowel sound the Portuguese uses.

Name confusion aside, bife da vazia by any moniker is a great cut, versatile and full of flavor, and a favorite for a handful of delicious purposes.

Is Bife da Vazia the Same as Picanha?

Not at all! Picanha is from the top of the sirloin (and can sometimes be found under the name “top sirloin cap”), and it’s very different. The similarity comes in the fact that both are Brazilian names for cuts of meat, and that they’re popular in Brazilian discussions of meat and grilling, but that’s about it.

The truth is, bife da vazia and picanha are extremely different in texture, flavor, and culinary use. Bife da vazia is lean and easy to overcook; picanha is much richer, thicker, and fattier. They’re both incredible in their own ways, so make sure to try them both!

Is Bife da Vazia the Same as Sirloin?

Nope! Bife da vazia is close to the sirloin, but it’s not the same region of meat. Again, though, the confusion tends to come from conflation between flank steak and flap steak, and their similarities.

Flap steak is also from relatively low on the cow, the lower end of the sirloin, and it’s also a relatively lean cut with lengthy muscle fibers that need to be cut properly for the tenderest meal. But they do have different tastes and textures, something you can really appreciate when you enjoy Brazilian churrasco and have no sauces or spices coming between you and the meat itself.

What Are the Main Attributes of Bife da Vazia?

What makes bife da vazia stand out from other cuts on the cow?

Bife da vazia, or flank steak, comes from the flank of the cow. The muscles here are long and large, and very well-exercised compared to some of the other cuts of meat you may be more familiar with.

What this means is you have a cut that is very distinctive.

• It’s very broad, since it runs a good length of the cow.
• It’s relatively thin, since it isn’t a large bundle of muscle.
• The muscle fibers tend to be very long, giving the meat a long horizontal grain.
• The well-worked muscle leaves no room for fat, so it’s a very lean cut. It lacks both marbling and a fat cap like you see with other cuts.

There are a couple of key attributes here that will inform how you cook and use bife da vazia in a recipe.

The first is the leanness of the cut. This gives it a fairly strong beef flavor, without the richness or fattiness of the more marbled cuts. This tends to be a more meaty kind of flavor, possibly with notes of nuttiness or earthiness, and occasionally some gaminess depending on the specific animal it was cut from.

Leanness also means it’s a very easy cut to dry out, since there’s very little fat to render and saturate the meat. That usually means you risk drying it out if you overcook it, so you either need to cook it quickly over high heat to retain the juices or you need to use added liquid from some source, like a sauce, to balance the dryness.

We’ll give you a recipe later, but we often recommend a marinade to infuse the meat with more flavor and more moisture before cooking it.

The third critical attribute of bife da vazia is the long-grain nature of the cut. Bife da vazia is a cut that absolutely needs to be cut contrafile; that is, against the grain.

If you’ve ever had a steak where the bites you took were tough and stringy, that’s meat that was cut along the grain. The grain is the muscle fibers, which can be tougher and harder to bite through. Cutting against the grain means you have a bunch of pre-cut stacks of fibers that are easier to chew through.

Think of it like trying to bite through a plastic straw, versus having to separate a bunch of straws held together; it’s easier to pull the straws apart along the grain than it is to chew through the grain. You can see it nicely illustrated here.

What this means is that you are pretty much never going to get a bife da vazia steak handed to you on a plate. Instead, the cut is most commonly either cooked as a whole roast and sliced against the grain into thin slices to serve, or it’s cut into those thin slices before cooking and made into something like carne asada. Which, yes, is more Mexican than Brazilian, but you get the idea.

All of this means that bife da vazia is best used for something like a stir fry or as part of a large recipe for something like tacos or fajitas.

How is Bife da Vazia Cooked in Brazil?

In Brazil, you can find bife da vazia in a lot of different ways, but two of them stand out. One is simple: the churrasco grilling method we use for all of our meats at Texas de Brazil. The other is a more traditional home-cooked meat, where it’s marinated, cooked over a lower heat, and grilled.

Authentic Churrasco Flank Steak

If you have access to a source of high, direct heat, you can replicate the churrasco method at home. You need that high heat, which is usually more than a simple grill can handle. You also need skewers.

The seasoning for churrasco is very simple: it’s salt. Salt is a flavor enhancer and draws out more of the natural beef flavor of the cut, while not lingering too much and leaving the meat unpleasant. In Brazil, we use sal grosso, a large rock salt, which can dissolve and infuse the meat but still be somewhat scraped off later.

To cook churrasco, skewer the meat and coat it with salt. Then, over a high flame, cook it. You can raise and lower the skewers to get the heat just right; you’re looking for just that hint of char, while leaving the middle a nice medium-rare. Be careful not to over-cook it, or it can be left dry and tough!

Once the meat is done, you can slice (against the grain, always!) pieces of it off to enjoy. While Brazilian meats usually come with some kind of green sauce like chimichurri, make sure to try it without first, so you can experience the bold beef flavors without adulteration.

Brazilian Marinated Bife da Vazia with Chimichurri

The second recipe is a bit more intensive, and you’ll need a grill, a food processor, and plenty of ingredients. You can also read a more complete rundown on this recipe here.

The keys to this recipe are all in the marinade. The oil gives it a good base and helps infuse the flavors of the spices into the meat, while providing a bit more fattiness to it. The soy helps bring some umami and, critically, some acidic pH to help break down the meat and make it a little more tender.

For the chimichurri, you need:

• 1 cup olive oil
• ¼ cup lemon juice (or red wine vinegar)
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• ½ cup fresh parsley
• ¼ cup fresh cilantro (optional if you have the anti-cilantro gene)
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes (also optional if you prefer something without heat)
• Salt and pepper, to taste.

Pulse the garlic into a mince if you don’t have minced garlic handy, then add the herbs and pulse further to a uniform consistency. Add in the rest of the ingredients and pulse a few more times to combine. Try to limit over-blending here so you have a bit of texture to the sauce, rather than a fine paste.

For the steak marinade, you need:

• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar (honey is also an option)

Whisk all of these ingredients together and pour into a shallow dish or into a sealable bag. Add the flank steak (this is enough marinade for about 1-2 pounds of meat), turn to coat, and let it sit. Marinate for a minimum of 30 minutes, but ideally at least 2-3 hours.

Once marinated, extract the steak and cook it over medium-high heat in a pan of your choice. A grill pan gives you nice grill ridges, while a frying pan gives you a nicer crust. You can also just grill it directly, of course. Aim for medium-rare, around 130-135 degrees internal, to avoid over-cooking.

Finally, slice against the grain and serve with the sauce. Enjoy!

Experience Bife da Vazia at Texas de Brazil

Though we don’t call it bife da vazia on our menu (flank steak is more recognizable), you can experience authentic Brazilian churrasco beef at any of our global locations. It might not be as popular as picanha, but it’s still one of our top meats, and it’s one you’re sure to enjoy.

If you don’t have a local Texas de Brazil, or you don’t want to go out when you have a perfectly good grill at home, we can also help there as well. You can have us cater an event and bring the flavors of Brazilian churrasco right to you! You can also buy Brazilian cuts like picanha from our butcher shop directly. There’s no bife da vazia in our shop, though, since you’ll be able to find that at any local butcher or meat market, pretty much anywhere beef is sold.

If you’re planning to stop in, don’t forget to sign up for our eClub ahead of time. Not only do you get an introductory offer for joining, but we’ll also give you special deals and access to club-only promotions, and it’s all completely free.

We’re looking forward to sharing the best flavors of Brazil with you, so stop in as soon as you can!

Farofa is one of the most popular foods in Brazil, and with good reason. It’s delicious, it’s simple to make, it’s an excellent topping for a huge variety of meals, and it enhances any dish you put it on. We’ve even written about it before, so if you want a rundown on the culture and popularity of the dish, you can check out that post here.

That said, there’s one big question you might have: is it healthy? In an increasingly health-conscious world, you might not want to eat farofa if it’s full of bad nutrients or excessive sodium, right?

Let’s run down everything you need to know about farofa, including whether or not you can enjoy it without concern.

What is Farofa Made Out Of?

We are what we eat, so what is farofa made out of?

The primary ingredient is the starch from a root vegetable widely cultivated in Brazil. That vegetable is known by several names, including manioc and yuca, and the flour made from grinding the root is known as tapioca. Most commonly, though, the plant is known as cassava.

Whatever the name, the roots are grown, harvested, and processed before being turned into a flour-like substance. That flour is then used in a bunch of different ways, including as the base ingredient of farofa.

Fun fact: Cassava is native to central Brazil and has been domesticated as a staple food item for at least 10,000 years! How’s that for longevity?

Of course, there’s a lot more to farofa than just the cassava flour.

There are two main “versions” of farofa: the version used as a topping with relatively few other ingredients, and the version full of other goodies served as much as a dish itself.

Farofa as a Topping

The “lite” version of farofa, sometimes also known as farinha (the Portuguese word for flour), is commonly found pretty much everywhere throughout Brazil, and it’s one of the staple sides we have available in the salad area of our restaurants here at Texas de Brazil.

The ingredients involved in making it are almost entirely for flavor and texture, rather than substance.

• Butter, to provide some fat and bring the farofa together.

Technically, you can stop there! The simplest possible farofa recipe (the one more commonly seen as farinha) is just cassava flour and butter, with a little salt if the butter is unsalted. For most farofa recipes, though, you’ll have at least a couple more ingredients.

• Onions and garlic, for that ever-popular aromatic addition.
• Bacon, for a rich meatiness and smoky flavor.
• Salt and pepper, which enhance every dish.

And that’s it! The combination of rendered bacon fat and butter helps the cassava flour clump up into the breadcrumb-like texture we know and love, and the other ingredients add flavor to the crumbs. It makes for a perfect addition to basically every dish, because really, who doesn’t love a spoonful of rich, smoky goodness?

Farofa as a Dish

Farofa, when served as a side dish, has a lot more going on. It’s also one of those recipes where seemingly every family has their own variation, so there’s no real way to go wrong with it.

What goes into it?

• Onions (or shallots) and garlic, just like above.
• Bacon, also just like above.
• Butter, because, of course, you need butter for this.
• Eggs, beaten and scrambled into the dish like fried rice.
• Olives, for bits of salty, brine flavor. Kalamatas are common.
• Dried fruit, usually raisins and/or cranberries, for a sweet addition.
• Scallions, usually as a topping and garnish.
• Salt and pepper because, again, it helps everything.

That’s a common recipe, but it’s far from the only one. We’ve also seen farofa recipes that include:

• Herbs like parsley and chives.
• Red and green peppers, for a more vegetal variation.
• Sausage or salami, for a more complex meat flavor.
• Carrot, to add to the onion for a more French-adjacent take.
• Bananas, for a dessert version of the treat.
• Walnuts, for a different kind of crunch and flavor than the farofa itself.

As you can see, there are a million different variations. Even the way you cook the eggs or the kind of olive, onion, or fruit you use can change. If you’re looking to make some yourself, feel free to experiment to find what you like the most!

What Does Farofa Taste Like?

To us, it tastes like home. To others, it tastes like smoke and butter, salt and onion, or ” tasty sawdust“.

Farofa tastes largely like what it’s made out of.

Cassava flour itself is a very neutral flavor, slightly earthy, occasionally mildly nutty, but not very strong at all. It really is a lot like the all-purpose flour you’d get for baking in that sense, and it’s very much an ingredient.

Farinha’s primary flavor, then, is just the butter used to bring it together. And hey, who could ever complain about the flavor of butter?

Farofa adds in the flavors of alliums, the garlic and onion we all know and love, and the meatiness and smoky flavor of bacon. None of this is exactly unusual in American cuisine, much of which starts by sauteing onions and garlic, and we all know our good friend bacon.

Why is farofa such a cultural icon if it’s so simple?

For that, you’ll want to read the article we linked above, but the short version is: it was a cheap staple carbohydrate, similar to rice and corn in other countries, and the simple flavors were readily available and easy to use as a food source even in times of scarcity, poverty, and famine.

Really, though, most of the time, Brazilians aren’t adding farofa to their meals for the flavor so much as they are for the texture. We’ve described it like breadcrumbs before, and that’s really the most appropriate descriptor. It’s a little crunchy and a little grainy, without being tough to eat. It adds crunch to foods that don’t normally have it, like feijoada and churrasco meats.

What is the Nutritional Profile of Farofa?

Farofa has some pros and some cons when it comes to its nutritional profile.

At the heart of the meal is the cassava flour. Cassava is a root, a starch, a vegetable, and most of all, a carbohydrate. Of the three macronutrients, carbohydrates are the highest. Fats follow second, since the secondary ingredients in farofa are butter and bacon, which bring a lot of fat into the equation. Protein comes in third, carried mostly by the bacon and additions like eggs if you’re going for a robust farofa recipe.

While the specific nutritional profile of farofa will vary according to the recipe, we can at least give you the nutritional facts for ours:

• 50 Calories
• 30 Calories from fats
• Total fat: 3.5 g
• Saturated fat: 2 g
• Trans fat: 0 g
• Cholesterol: 20 mg
• Sodium: 45 mg
• Carbohydrates: 5 g
• Dietary fiber: 1 g
• Sugar: 1 g
• Protein: 1 g

That’s for one tablespoon of farofa using our recipe.

All of those numbers are pretty low, including the serving size, but that’s because farofa is a topping. You aren’t putting very much of it on your food when you enjoy it.

Farofa also has a couple of benefits.

For one, it’s gluten-free. Cassava flour is actually widely used as a gluten-free alternative to wheat flour, and can be used to make everything from cookies to bread. In fact, another Brazilian favorite, pao de queijo, is a Brazilian cheese bread that our patrons love.

Baseline farofa can also be free from soy, and even from eggs, though specific recipes like ours might not be. Be sure to check our nutritional information and err on the side of caution if you have allergies to those kinds of ingredients.

Sadly, two ingredients are core to farofa that you can’t really avoid: butter (dairy, and thus milk) and onion. If you’re one of the unfortunate souls allergic to one of those ingredients, you’ll want to hold off on the topping.

Is Farofa Healthy?

This is a tricky question to answer, honestly. For the most part, we’re going to consider farofa as a topping, and not the whole dish, which is too variable to pin down easily. If you want to analyze farofa as a stand-alone dish, you’ll need to consider all of the ingredients.

Farofa is carb-forward, which means it’s not suitable for low-carb or no-carb diets. At least, no-carb diets. Low-carb diets can still enjoy a little farofa as a treat, since you really only eat so little of it that it’s barely a blip on your daily carbohydrate intake. A typical low-carb diet aims for under 50 grams of carbs per day, and a whole tablespoon of farofa is around 10% of that.

Farofa is also relatively low in fat. 3.5 grams of fat in a tablespoon is a pretty small amount, when you consider an average diet should be consuming around 50-78 grams of fat per day. It’s free of unhealthy trans fats, too.

Since farofa is low in protein, you aren’t getting enough protein from it to really be meaningful. And really, if you’re having it as a topping for something like churrasco, or a mix-in for feijoada, you’re getting way more protein from the base food than the farofa.

One thing you might have heard about is that cassava, the root, contains certain compounds that can be toxic. In fact, when first harvested, those compounds react with oxygen in the air and form cyanide.

That’s actually not all that bad, though. For one thing, a lot of foods contain a little bit of cyanide, or compounds that can turn into cyanide, including sorghum, bamboo shoots, rhubarb, potatoes, and lima beans. In tiny amounts, it’s effectively harmless; your body is more than capable of removing the little bit you might get from a meal, or even from the air you breathe. People who smoke cigarettes get way more cyanide than you’d find in a meal with every drag.

More importantly, the way cassava is processed removes the compounds that cause cyanide to form. Some tiny amounts might make it through, but the majority is gone. Cyanide is only a concern in cassava if it’s very improperly processed, and that’s quite rare.

So, put your mind at ease; cassava, at least the kind that makes it to market, is not toxic in any way that matters.

So, is farofa healthy?

Well, it’s not unhealthy. It would be if you were to chow down on a bowl of it, but that’s not what you’re going to do, is it? Even the meal-focused farofa recipes are largely made of other ingredients, and the farofa serves as a sort of crust, like tempura or panko.

There’s also an argument to be made that farofa is one of the better carbohydrates to enjoy. Cassava is low on the glycemic index, which puts it ahead of some other kinds of carbs.

When you get right down to it, the fact is, you probably aren’t eating enough farofa at any given time for it to be really impactful towards your diet one way or the other. The only thing you might be concerned about is the sodium, and that’s going to be true of pretty much every Brazilian food that isn’t primarily made out of sugar.

Interested in trying it for yourself, to see what all the fuss is about? You can bet that farofa will always be available in our salad area here at Texas de Brazil. We wouldn’t be a Brazilian restaurant without it, after all! So, find your nearest location and plan a trip! You can call ahead or use our web form to reserve a space, or you can stop by whenever you get the chance. Don’t forget to join our eClub for special deals and offers! We’re sure you’ll love what we have on offer, so we look forward to serving you.