Where to Start with Olivia Mesquita
Olivia Mesquita is a Brazilian food blogger and cookbook author based in the United States. She created Olivia’s Cuisine, a popular cooking blog where she shares Brazilian and internationally inspired recipes. Her work has been featured by Buzzfeed, Parade, Country Living, and The Kitchn. Her cookbook, Authentic Brazilian Home Cooking (2023), draws on the dishes her grandmother made for her growing up in Brazil, translating family recipes into clear, approachable instructions for home cooks who may never have worked with Brazilian ingredients before. She has partnered with brands like ShopRite and Kings Food Markets, and her audience spans home cooks across the Americas and Europe who want to bring authentic Brazilian flavors into their daily cooking.
Start here
Authentic Brazilian Home Cooking
Olivia Mesquita · 152 pages · 2023 · Easy
Themes: brazilian cuisine, home cooking, feijoada, brigadeiro, comfort food
A warm, personal introduction to Brazilian cooking from food blogger Olivia Mesquita, whose recipes are rooted in the dishes her grandmother made in Brazil. The book covers 60 recipes spanning the full range of a Brazilian table, from street food snacks and hearty mains to iconic desserts like brigadeiro and mousse de maracuja.
Why Start Here
This is Mesquita’s only cookbook, and it represents years of recipe development from her popular blog distilled into a focused, well-organized collection. The recipes come from family tradition rather than professional kitchens, which means the portions, timing, and ingredient lists are calibrated for real home cooking.
You get the essentials: feijoada (black bean stew with pork), coxinha (chicken croquettes), pastel de bacalhau (salt cod pastries), and baiao de dois (rice with black-eyed peas, beef, and cheese). The dessert chapter covers brigadeiro, beijinho, and passion fruit mousse. Each recipe includes tips for substituting hard-to-find ingredients with what you can get at a regular supermarket.
What to Expect
A compact book at 152 pages with color photography. The recipes are straightforward and most can be completed in under an hour. Mesquita writes with the casual authority of someone who grew up eating these dishes and has spent years teaching them to an international audience. This is a practical starting point that will get you cooking Brazilian food confidently and quickly.