Gluten-free Brazilian Cheese Bread (Pão de queijo)

Gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread, or pão de queijo, is one of Brazil’s most beloved snacks—chewy, cheesy rolls made from tapioca flour instead of wheat. Originating in the Minas Gerais region, these naturally gluten-free bites have become a staple across the country, enjoyed with morning coffee or as a midday treat. What I love most about them is how simple ingredients—cheese, tapioca flour, eggs, and milk—come together to create something so deeply satisfying. Once you make them at home, you’ll understand why every Brazilian household has their own treasured version of this classic recipe. Continue reading to dive into a step-by-step guide to making them!

Step 1: Gather your ingredients

To begin, gather all of your ingredients! This recipe calls for 1 pound of tapioca flour (the size of a standard bag), some salt, 2 eggs, oil, milk, and cheese. For this recipe, we use 2 cups of cheese, cheddar and mozzarella (obviously not traditional!), but you can use whatever kind(s) of cheese you enjoy!

Step 2: Heat liquids & combine dry ingredients

In a small pan over medium heat, heat the milk and oil together. At the same time, mix tapioca flour and salt. Just before the liquids boil, remove them from the heat and pour half over the dry ingredients. Use a Danish dough whisk to stir until just combined. You may ask – why add only half? In our trials, we found adding half allowed both for the dough to cool more quickly (and avoid curdling eggs/melting cheese). Additionally, adding only half allowed for the cheese to mix evenly throughout the dough. However, if you’d like to save a step, you can go ahead and add it all at once! The dough will be somewhat shaggy, like this:

Step 3: Add in eggs and cheese

Use the Danish dough whisk to add in eggs and cheese. Mix until the newly-added ingredients have been incorporated completely. The dough will seem overly cheesy. It is actually the perfect amount of cheesy! The cheese will melt as the rolls bake and incorporate into the dough.

Step 4: Add in remaining milk and oil

When it comes to olive oil, quality matters. If you’re wondering how to choose a bottle, see our olive oil guide.

Mix in the remaining milk/oil mixture. The dough should look wet and sticky, like this:

Step 5: Spoon the dough into mini-muffin tins

This is a somewhat tricky step. The easiest way we found to accomplish this task is to use a regular spoon to spoon the desired amount of dough into each muffin spot. Then, using wet fingers, gently shape the tops until no extreme peaks remain. They should look like this:

The dough will rise, but even still, our trials found it beneficial to mound the dough over the top by a good amount. There was about 2-3 tbsp of dough in each muffin spot. Because we only had small muffin trays, we had to bake in batches. To avoid this, you could use a larger muffin tray! The recipe yields about 36 rolls.

Step 6: Bake your gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread

Bake the rolls at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-40 minutes, depending on the amount of rolls baked at once, as well as the temperature of your particular oven. The finished product looks like this:

You may notice one is missing. That’s because they’re so yummy, we had to split one immediately!

It should be noted that the color of your muffins may change depending on the color of cheese used. The cheddar is providing some of the golden color here, so if you opt out of a yellow cheese, your rolls may be lighter in color!

The texture is light, but chewy. Somewhat of a cross between the light and airy crumb of sandwich bread and the chewy texture of mochi. See for yourself:

You now have your very own gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread! Looking for more Brazilian classics? Try our Brazilian black bean soup! Make sure to pin this recipe for later, so you can enjoy the chewy, cheesy deliciousness again and again! Bom apetite!

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