Chipá – Paraguayan Gluten-Free Cheese Rolls
Homemade cheese rolls made from tapioca starch: crisp outside, chewy and elastic inside, and naturally gluten free. In Paraguay and Argentina they are called chipá; Brazil has a close relative in pão de queijo. They are a fixture alongside the afternoon mate.
A simple recipe that works at the first attempt, and the raw balls freeze and go straight from the freezer into the oven.
One thing departs from what you know about dough: how much milk goes in is not fixed. It depends on how moist your cheese is. The dough should be workable, not soft.
🔎 What is yerba mate? — where it comes from, what goes in it and how it differs.
Ingredients
- 500 g tapioca starch (cassava starch)
- 250 g semi-hard cheese, coarsely grated (a young Gouda or similar)
- 100 g hard cheese, finely grated (Parmesan type)
- 100 g butter, at room temperature
- 2 eggs
- 100 ml milk (approximately)
- 1 tsp fine salt
Method
- 1
Put the tapioca starch in a large bowl with the salt. Add the soft butter and the eggs, and start bringing it together with your hands.
- 2
Add both grated cheeses and the milk a little at a time, kneading until you have a smooth dough that does not stick to your hands. Exactly how much milk you need depends on the moisture of the cheese: the dough should be workable, not soft.
- 3
Roll balls the size of a large walnut and set them on a buttered tray or one lined with baking paper, leaving space between them.
- 4
Bake at 200 °C for 15 to 20 minutes, until they have puffed up and are barely golden on the base. Do not overdo it: inside they should stay moist and chewy.
- 5
Serve warm, while the cheese still pulls into threads. The raw balls can be frozen and baked straight from the freezer, adding 5 minutes to the cooking time.