Brazilian food reflects the country's history and size: Indigenous ingredients such as cassava, açaí and native fish; Portuguese colonial cooking; and deep African influences, especially in the northeast, where enslaved Africans shaped the cuisine of Bahia. Later waves of Italian, German, Japanese, Lebanese and Syrian immigrants added their own dishes. Brazil is the size of the continental United States, and its food changes dramatically from the Amazon to the southern plains. This guide explains the essential dishes, where to find them and how Brazilians eat day to day.

Everyday eating: rice, beans and the "prato feito"

Rice and beans (arroz e feijão) are the foundation of daily meals across much of Brazil. A typical lunch — the main meal of the day — is a "prato feito" or "PF": rice, beans, a meat or fish, salad and often farofa, toasted cassava flour. Self-service restaurants that charge by weight ("comida por quilo") are common in cities and good value. Brazil's official Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population, published by the Ministry of Health, are internationally praised for promoting this kind of fresh, home-style cooking over ultra-processed food.

Feijoada

Feijoada, a stew of black beans slow-cooked with pork and smoked sausage, is often called Brazil's national dish. It is traditionally eaten on Wednesdays or Saturdays in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, served with rice, sautéed collard greens (couve), farofa, orange slices and pork crackling. Its origins are debated: a popular story links it to enslaved Africans using leftover cuts, but many historians trace it to Portuguese bean-and-meat stews. Either way, it is a long, social meal best enjoyed with caipirinhas.

Churrasco

Brazilian barbecue originated with the gaúchos, the cowboys of Rio Grande do Sul in the south. Meat is seasoned mainly with coarse salt and grilled over charcoal. The prized cut is picanha (top sirloin cap). In churrascarias, waiters bring skewers to your table in a "rodízio" system until you turn your card to red. At home, churrasco is a weekend ritual for family and friends.

Moqueca

Moqueca is a fish or seafood stew cooked in a clay pot. The Bahian version (moqueca baiana) uses coconut milk and dendê (palm) oil, reflecting African influence, while the Espírito Santo version (moqueca capixaba) uses olive oil and annatto and no coconut milk — a rivalry locals take seriously. Both are served with rice and pirão, a fish-stock porridge thickened with cassava flour.

Bahia's Afro-Brazilian food

Salvador, the capital of Bahia, is the heart of Afro-Brazilian cuisine. Its signature street food is acarajé: black-eyed pea fritters fried in dendê oil and split open with vatapá (a creamy paste of bread, shrimp, peanuts and coconut), caruru (okra stew) and prawns. The craft of the "baianas de acarajé", the women who sell it in traditional white dress, is registered as Brazilian cultural heritage by the national heritage institute IPHAN.

Amazonian flavours

In the north, cuisine draws on Indigenous ingredients. In Belém, try tacacá, a hot soup of tucupi (fermented cassava broth), jambu leaves that make the lips tingle, and dried shrimp; and pato no tucupi, duck in tucupi sauce. Açaí in the Amazon is not the sweet frozen bowl sold abroad: it is a thick, unsweetened purple pulp eaten with fish and farinha as part of a meal.

Snacks and street food (salgados)

  • Pão de queijo: chewy cheese bread from Minas Gerais, made with cassava starch and cheese; naturally gluten-free.
  • Coxinha: teardrop-shaped fried dough filled with shredded chicken and cream cheese (catupiry).
  • Pastel: thin fried pastries with fillings from cheese to minced meat, sold at street markets (feiras) with sugarcane juice (caldo de cana).
  • Tapioca: a crêpe made from cassava starch, popular in the northeast for breakfast, filled with cheese, coconut or meat.
  • Esfiha and kibe: Lebanese and Syrian dishes that became Brazilian staples thanks to immigrant communities.

Sweets

Brigadeiro — chocolate truffles made from condensed milk, cocoa and butter, rolled in chocolate sprinkles — are essential at every birthday party. Other favourites include beijinho (coconut version), quindim (coconut and egg-yolk custard, inspired by Portuguese convent sweets), pudim (flan) and romeu e julieta, guava paste with cheese.

Drinks

The caipirinha, made with cachaça (sugarcane spirit), lime and sugar, is Brazil's national cocktail. Cachaça is protected as a distinctive Brazilian product. Brazilians also drink strong coffee — Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer — often as a small, sweet "cafezinho" offered to guests, and the soft drink guaraná, made from an Amazonian fruit. In the south, gaúchos drink chimarrão, a bitter mate tea sipped from a gourd.

Regional quick guide

  • Minas Gerais: comida mineira — pão de queijo, tutu de feijão (bean purée), pork and cheese, cooked on wood stoves.
  • São Paulo: huge diversity, including Italian pizza, Japanese food in Liberdade and the mortadella sandwich of the Municipal Market.
  • Rio de Janeiro: feijoada, biscoito Globo on the beach, juice bars and botecos (bars) serving snacks.
  • The south: churrasco and German-influenced baking in Santa Catarina.
  • The northeast: carne de sol (sun-dried beef), baião de dois (rice and beans cooked together) and fresh seafood.

Festivals and food

Food is central to Brazil's festivals. During the June festivals (festas juninas), especially in the northeast, people eat corn-based dishes such as pamonha and canjica, paçoca (peanut sweets) and quentão, a hot spiced drink, while dancing quadrilha in country-style costumes. At Christmas, families serve roast turkey or pork with farofa and panettone, a legacy of Italian immigration, and New Year's Eve on the beach often includes lentils for luck. Carnival calls for quick, portable street food: skewers of grilled cheese (queijo coalho), pastéis and cold beer.

Cooking Brazilian food at home

Many Brazilian ingredients are now easy to find abroad in Latin American or Portuguese shops: cassava flour for farofa, cassava starch (polvilho) for pão de queijo, black beans, guava paste and cachaça. Dendê oil and fresh açaí pulp are harder to source outside Brazil. If you move to Brazil, weekly street markets (feiras livres) offer the best produce at the lowest prices.

Tips for visitors and new residents

Lunch is usually the biggest meal, between noon and 2pm; dinner is lighter and later. Most restaurants add a 10% service charge, which is standard. Street food is generally safe at busy stalls. For longer stays and costs, see our Brazil country guide, and the official tourism board Visit Brasil lists regional food festivals.