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Pan de yuca or cassava cheese bread

Pan de yuca or cheese breads

Ecuadorian pan de yuca are small cheesy breads made with yuca flour (cassava/tapioca starch) and cheese. There are variations of these delicious breads in many Latin countries. They are known as chipas in Paraguay/Argentina, pan de queso in Colombia, cuñape in Bolivia, and pao de queijo in Brazil. The variations and exact ingredients vary from one place to another, my recipe for pan de yuca is made with yuca starch, cheese, butter and eggs.

Yuca bread makes a delicious warm appetizer and the breads can be made in advance and baked minutes before serving. Leftover breads will get hard when they get cold, but can be reheated in the microwave (great for breakfast the day after). The flour is made from yuca root, and is also known as cassava or tapioca starch, the flour can be found in most supermarkets, in Latin grocery stores, or online. 

Video Recipe

Receta en español

Pan de yuca or cheese bread

Pan de yuca, also known as cheese bread or yuca bread, are yummy melt in your mouth warm breads made with cheese and yuca or cassava starch
4.75 from 1073 votes
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Course: Appetizer, Bread, Brunch, Snack
Cuisine: Ecuadorian, Latin, South American
Keyword: Cassava cheese bread, Pan de yuca, Yuca bread
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 20 -25 small yuca breads

Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups yuca or cassava starch - sometimes also called yuca flour or tapioca starch/flour
  • 4 cups grated mozzarella cheese can also use half mozzarella & half queso fresco or quesillo
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 stick of butter 4 oz or 113 grams, room temperature, cut into 8 pieces
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2-4 tablespoons of water or milk, add more if the dough is dry

Instructions

  • Combine the yuca starch or flour, cheese, baking powder and salt in a food processor, blend to mix well.
  • Add the butter and eggs.
  • Mix until small dough balls begin to form, if it's too dry add 1-2 tablespoons of water or milk. Add more if needed.
  • Remove the dough from the food processor and roll into a ball, you can make the dough ahead and store in the refrigerator for up to a day.
  • To make the dough by hand, combine all the ingredients in large bowl, using melted (cooled down) butter, and mix until you have a smooth dough. It's actually very easy to prepare by hand.
  • Pre-heat the oven to 500 F.
  • Make small round shaped breads with the dough and place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  • Bake immediately or store in the fridge until ready to bake. I find that they turn out best if you do let them chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes before baking.
  • Once the oven reaches 500F, turn on broiler, place the breads on the middle rack and bake until the breads are golden, about 5-7 minutes. Another option is to pre-heat the oven to 400F and bake at 400F for about 5 minutes and then turn on the broiler.
  • Serve immediately, can be served alone or with tree tomato aji.

Notes

See variations below for more helpful tips & ideas.

Pan de yuca or yuca bread recipe

In Ecuador, pan de yuca is usually served with yogurt smoothies and there are several restaurants whose specialty is yuca bread with yogurt. I usually serve yuca bread as an appetizer, with tree tomato aji, but they are also great for breakfast or with an afternoon coffee or tea. My kids love yuca bread and I always let them have some dough so they can make their own shapes: ovals, triangles, spirals, etc. They get very excited as they watch the oven and wait for their bread to be ready.

Yuca cheese breads

I used to make yuca bread by hand, and it is probably one of the easiest breads to make by hand, the ingredients are easy to mix, but it is a little bit sticky, so I tried using the food processor instead and it works great. If you don’t have a food processor or prefer to make it by hand, just melt the butter to make it easier to mix the ingredients.

Notes, tips, ideas & variations for making yuca cheese breads:

I’ve been making these delicious cheesy breads for so long, and in different places when we travel. I am constantly finding that the yuca bread dough is so flexible and can be used in many different ways. Here’s a quick compilation of some of the variations, tips, and ideas that I’ve tried over the years:

Ecuadorian yuca starch bread

– The texture of the yuca breads will vary based on the type of the cheese you use, this recipe uses mozzarella (not fresh, but the grated harder type) and I sometimes mix it with queso fresco. This results in very soft and smooth tasting breads which my family loves. For a cheese bread with a crunchier texture and stronger cheese flavor, you can use a harder more aged cheese: parmesan, gruyere, emmental, etc. When we visit my in-laws in France I usually take the tapioca flour from the US and use local cheese (usually the grated emmental they sell at most grocery stores there). When making these with dryer aged cheese you will need to add more liquid (water or milk) to the dough to get it to the right consistency.

Cassava yuca breads made with emmental cheese in France

– If you want the yuca breads to have a perfect uniform shape or if they tend to fall flat after baking (this tends to happen more if they didn’t have time in the fridge before or if the oven isn’t pre-heated/very hot when baking them) – you can use a small muffin tin to keep them in place.

Bake the yuca bread in a muffin tin for rounder breads

– To freeze the unbaked yuca bread rolls, place them on a baking sheet with wax paper, place in the freezer. As soon as the breads are frozen, transfer them to a Ziploc bag and save in the freezer until needed. To bake them from frozen, pre-heat the oven to 400-425F, place the frozen yuca breads on a baking sheet lined with parchment, and bake until golden on top.

Frozen yuca breads

Grilled yuca cheese breads: You can also grill the yuca breads, this works best on a pizza stone. Make sure your grill is very hot and the pizza stone is pre-heated, then place the breads on the stone and let them cook until golden. They tend to have a crunchier outer texture when grilled.

Grilled yuca or cassava cheese bread

Yuca cheese griddle tortillas: You can also flatten them into thick tortilla shapes and cook them in a grill or in a stovetop pan.

Yuca cheese griddle tortillas

Yuca bread waffles: Another idea is to cook them in a waffle maker. Simply form the dough into a thicker patty (slightly smaller than your waffle maker), and place it in the waffle maker, cook until crispy on both sides.

Yuca bread waffles

Yuca bread pizzas: You can flatten the dough as thin as you would like, add a light layer of sauce (tomato, pesto, etc), your favorite toppings, and bake at 450F until crispy.

Yuca cheese bread pizza

Stuffed yuca cheese breads: Make the breads as usual, but put a piece of guava paste in the middle of each one, seal, and bake for a sweet & savory variation. Other filling ideas include cooked chorizo, cooked bacon, a piece of a different type of cheese, etc.

Yuca breads stuffed with guava paste

Yuca bread empanadas: Use the yuca bread dough to make gluten free empanada discs, just be warned that the dough is very fragile, fill it with you favorite savory or sweet filling, and bake or fry.

Yuca bread empanada dough

Fun holiday shaped yuca bread treats: For holidays you can use cookie cutters to cut the dough into different shapes and decorate them with olives, pimento peppers, etc. For Halloween, I used a ghost cookie cutter to make these cute little yuca cheese ghosts with pimento pepper eyes.

Yuca cheese bread ghosts for Halloween

Photos of yuca bread or pan de yuca preparation:

Yuca flour or tapioca starch

Ingredients for yuca cheese breads

Yuca bread preparation

Pan de yuca Pan de yuca

Pan de yuca recipe Pan de yuca or cheese bread

Pan de yuca or pan de queso

You can freeze the yuca bread rolls and bake as needed

Pan de yuca or cheese bread recipe

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119 Comments

  1. Dear Friends

    I was most elated to stumble across this recipe. I have been on a yeast and gluten free diet since February. I need one thing clarified. I have both cassava flour and tapioca flour. The difference. The cassava flour is made from fine milled cassava root and the tapioca flour is very very fine and white almost powder like. Which one of them are you referring to in the recipe.

    Thanks for your help.

    I am referring to the tapioca starch, but if you look for it in some Latin grocery stores you will find it is called Yuca Harina (which translates as yuca flour).

  2. In Brazil, pão de queijo is made of yuca starch (polvilho), not yuca flour (farinha de mandioca). If you look for tapioca in Brazil you’ll find a different kind of flour, in spite of being the same root. Farofa is made of yuca flour.

    Hi Camila – Thank you for the clarification, in Ecuador we call it both almidon (starch) and harina (flour) de yuca. I try to refer to the possible names of the ingredients mainly by what you will find it called in the US and depending on the brand (at least in stores here) you will find it here called yuca flour (or yuca harina) or mandioc/cassava starch, but I have seen one brand that lists several names including polvilho.

  3. OH!! i just saw this on tastespotting. i was actually craving them today and just about to look for a recipe but its like you read my mind. thanks for sharing. i cant wait to eat these suckers.

  4. You’ve just made me the happiest girl in the world today. I did a double take while browsing tastespotting and said, “wow, those rolls look like pao de queijo” and it WAS. I used to live in Brasil, and though I’ve tried a million recipes for it, I’ve yet to find one that actually works for me. Yours are beautiful and I’m going to try it- probably tonight, thank you!

    Hi Sara – I was just looking at that delicious salad and yummy dressing on your site, and those key lime tarts look amazing!

  5. i love this bread! i thought parmesan cheese was used. can i use parmesan or other kinds of cheese instead of mozarella? will try this asap. it’s good we have cassava flour in the Philippines.

    Parmesan cheese is mainly used for the Brazilian version (and the traditional Brazilian version also has a smaller ratio of cheese to yuca flour), I have not tried making them Parmesan yet. In Ecuador a cheese called quesillo is used, it is a very fresh soft cheese – the easiest replacement I can find outside of Ecuador is mozzarella. I have also made it with Monterrey Jack (works fine), as well as Comte (when we were visiting family in France – they came out good but the cheese flavor was a little stronger), and also with white cheddar (in London – same thing as with French cheese, they were fine but the flavor of the stronger cheese was there).

  6. Hi Laylita,
    Thank you for your recipes, I’ve already tried your seco de pollo, and it was so good, just like in Ecuador, it remembered me of great times.
    Now I would like to cook panes de yuca, but I have a question for you. I have at home something my roomate bought to cook farofa (a brazilian side dish, that he prepares to acompany “feijoada”), and he calls it “yuca flour”. But I wonder if it is the same flour as you use in your recipe, because it is much thicker than wheat flour for example. So, do you know if it is the same thing ?
    muchas gracias

    Hi Marion – Farofa is made from yuca (or mandioca/manioc as called in Brazil) but it is very coarse, the yuca flour that you use to make pan de yuca is a very fine starchy flour, but you can probably find it at the same place that he finds the farofa. Recently I also found it at an Asian grocery store (it was called tapioca flour on the bag).

  7. this recipe looks delicious…Just wondering if I could use an alternative to yuca flour because they don’t sell this in England?

    Hi Mel – I have only made them with yuca flour, it is also know as tapioca starch or mandioc starch, my friend who lives in London mentioned that she could find it at a Latin grocery store close to Elephant & Castle (or something like that).

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