Pandebono is a traditional colombian cheese bread. I have been getting a lot of e-mails asking me for this recipe, so here it is my friends. I made these delicious pandebonos last week and they came out perfectly and were delicious. For a minute, I did not miss Colombia while eating these fantastic cheese balls, accompanied by a cup of Colombian coffee of course. I ate so many of them, I could not get up from the couch for a while. Try them, you’ll thank me for it 
Buen Provecho!
Ingredients
(12 pandebonos)
2/3 cup cassava starch or yuca flour
1/4 cup precooked cornmeal or masarepa
1 cup Mexican queso freso or Colombian quesito
1 1/4 cup feta cheese
1 large egg
Directions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 400°F.
2. In a food processor, place the yuca flour, cheese and masarepa. Process until well combined. Add the egg slowly while food processor is running.
3. Divide the mixture into 12 equal size portions, shaping them into balls.
4. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden on top. Serve warm.
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{ 99 comments }
There’s no place like home. Thanks for sharing the recipe. These cheese bread looks fantastic. The texture is perfect and I would love bite into it now. And I thought they’re complicated to make. But looking at the procedure, it’s actually simple which is great.
Yum!!!This is similar to Brazilian cheese bread!
Try them with hot chocolate!! Pandebono con chocolate caliente! So good…yum
Sounds absolutely delicious. Many cultures have similar breads, very interesting.
I would like to make this cheese bread, looks so good and easy recipe. Thanks!
Thank you everyone for visiting my blog!
This recipe looks really easy (provided I can find yuca flour!), and the final product looks delicious – everyone wins!
Lovely! There seems to be no leavening, however? I actually think that I can get all the ingredients –
WOW!
We eat these all the time for breakfast in Cali! I like the taste and know how to pronounce them in Spanish at the local panderia! My wife lets me go there without a translator!
This looks like quite an intriguing recipe! I’ve never had pandebono, it looks delicious!!!
Yum, I have not heard of these, but they look like you might have to hold me back! I would be popping those in my mouth till I looked like a squirrel on an acorn feast!
These unleavened cheese bread still look very fluffy and DELICIOUS!
These look so good and incredibly soft!
I bought some yuca flour I saw at the supermarket, but I had no idea of what to do with it, now I know for sure, thanks! this looks great!
Erica thanks for the recipe, this is my daughter favorite bread, i will make some for her, shes going to be so happy
Amalia
pandebonos con chocolate caliente que rico!.
Those cheese breads look delicious, pity most of the ingredients are not availble here.
My hubby looooooove cheese bread, in Brazil we have something similar. It’s a yummy snack. The Colombian version looks even better.
wow this looks and sounds soo good!
Thank you all for the comments
These look incredibly tasty and so simple to make. I will have to look for the flour in my local grocery. We have an extensive Hispanic food section, so I think I’ll be able to try these. I love your blog. I know very little about Columbian cuisine, so I love finding new foods and tastes.
I know that has to be delicious. It looks like pao de queijo from Brazil.
These look light, puffy, and oh so good! Your recipes never fail to make me want to try something new, Erica.
Wow – I could eat quite a bit of those too! I might be stuck on the couch all day
I’m glad you shared this…it looks so incredible and I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like it! I’m going to look for cassava starch or yuca flour when I go shopping!
oh heavenly lil balls !
Gorgeous! Would any other kind of flour do too?
Ruth- You need those flours to get the right texture.
This is one of those foods I thought it would be impossible to recreate, however reading your recipe I can’t wait to try it….does anyone have any idea what supermarketschains or special food distributors carry the yuca flour?
THANKS ERICA!!!!!!
Jorge- You can find yuca flour or yuca harina online at amigosfood.com or Goya has Yuca flour or tapioca starch.
MMMMM,…Erica!! Georgous bread rolls: feta with the cornmeal must taste apart & very lovely!!
Excellent with a warm bowl of home made soup!
These look scrumptious! I totally want to try them!
These sound great! What would be a good substitute for the flour?
DARN! Those look soooo good Erica!
Oh, that looks sooo tasty and soft… I must try your recipe
Adore cheese bread!! This recipe is glorious. The pan with cup of tea or several just alone
All the best,
Gera
WOW…look at how perfectly shaped your breads are! I am impressed…gorgeous. And yuca flour is something I’ve not tried and don’t remember ever seeing it before. Another quest for another flour!
Thankyou so much for sharing this recipe Erica! There is a Columbian restaurant that seels grocery items too so I know where to go to find ingredients when I make these
Is this similar to Brazilian cheese bread (I haven’t had either but I was researching Brazilian recipes not so long ago and came across is). It sounds delicious!
Thank you everyone for your comments and your continue support
My son loves this..We eat it all the time here in Cali too Gregyohn. What happened to you?
Erica – I know I sound like a broken record, but if I could have my way, I’d love say a week or so to really try all your recipes together instead of in spurts – really immerse myself in Columbian cooking. It all sounds so incredible and good.
Ave maria pues!
These look like the ones my mother use to make! I love your site! Thank you for representing Colombian cuisine, something that many have not had the pleasure of trying just yet!
Can you please post a recipe for muchacho rellgeno?
Thanks!
Best wishes and keep the recipes coming!
Ivonne- Did you check stuffed beef…. It is in the recipe list!
Wow! this looks so delicious!
These look good
I add 2 teaspoons of brown sugar to mine, use the food processor, and put a little butter on top of them about 5 minutes before they are done! Also, I do either little balls or the ring shape. Now I’m going to make some b/c they are so good!
Hello Erica, I live in Belgium and I have a Colombian friend Alexandra. She is forever talking of the great food back in Colombia and has not dared much to experiment here. Well, thanks to your site, I have been able to bring a little Colombia here for her. This has inspired her to try cooking traditional recipes for her family. The ingredients are not always easy to find, but I believe in compromising
I am happy to report that we both are having fun trying many of your recipes. I am American with a passion for good food and I love to cook!!!! So Erica, bring it on 
Keep up the awesome work here cause I am a big fan!!!
Thank you!!!!!
Elizabeth- Thank you so much for that wonderful comment! I truly appreciate it
I made those last week and they were fantastic. Thank you so much for the recipe.
Wow! I made this last week and they were fantastic. Thank you.
OMG I LOVE LOVE LOVE Pandebono!! I’m half Colombian, and love our country’s dishes. I have been somewhat hesitant to make them at home. I will go to a nearby Colombian bakery and get them there. However, you have inspired me to give it a shot!! Thank You! : )
My mother inlaw is from Colombia and she has always brought back the cheese balls by the suitcase full when she visits there, I asked her why she does not make them herself and she said it would be too hard. I can’t wait to show her your easy method to make this little goodies. She will be very happy.
Just found your site and SO excited about the pandebono! I made them last night and they were delicious.. just like the ones from the Colombian bakery I’ve been to!!
For those of you who were asking as well – I found tapioca flour at Whole Foods, but what I didn’t know was that tapioca flour IS yuca flour – they are both cassava/yuca starch. Just FYI. =) Thanks Erica!
WOW!! I just made these and they came out DELICIOUS. I used costeño cheese, since I’m in Barranquilla right now and I don’t think they have feta here, but followed the recipe exactly aside from that. Gracias, Erica!
I have to agree with all of them! These breads look fantastic. I wish I could find the ingredients here to try this. Thanks!
Regards, Kristy
My friend is Brazilian and her mom makes something similar to this quite often. They are delicious! I was looking up recipes for La Semana de las Idiomas del Mundo for my school and I am considering making these. Gracias!
We loved this bread…..it was wonderful. I made it for a class project about Colombia and everyone loved the pandebono. Thank you for posting this.
I made these pandebonos yesterday!!!! fantastic
Thank you for helping me to cook my wonderful Colombian food.
Hi,
I love your blog and the recipies, Colombian pastries are the best!!!! I am planning to do Pandebono, which I eat almost every week and I love it.
My only question is – where I can find yuca flour, I live in NY, but I haven’t seen it nowhere ?
These were on my Colombian menu for a party I catered last night- they really are wonderful! The other ‘hit’ was the Black Bean Soup. Not being familiar with Arepas, I’m not sure they were well received. I loved making them! Thank you for these wonderful postings…and pictures! Can’t do without them!
Hi Erica
Thank you for your work,I live in Canada. Is there another cheese to replace
1 cup Mexican queso freso or Colombian quesito. Would Mozarella cheese be good enough? Thank you
Hi Erica,
These look fantastic! Can they be frozen at the dough ball stage? If so, would the cooking temperature be the same?
Thanks!
HI Erica,
would this recipe work which plain cornmeal that isn’t pre-cooked?
Adele- I did not make it with plain cornmeal,so I don’t know!
I am super excited to make these!!! Quick question, because I was comparing with your pandequeso and almojabana.
The pandebono has a total of 2.25 cups of cheese for 12 servings? Just making sure i didn’t misread the 1 + 1 1/4 cups
And there is no leavening in the pandebono? I saw that the pandequeso and almojabana had baking powder.
Salud!
Nico- Just follow the recipe…..they are all different, but these are really easy and delicious.
How do you pronounce the name?
Hola Erika,! mil gracias por la receta, yo trabajo en la cocina de una compania multinacional con empleados de todo el mundo, uno de los chefs es italiano, y le encanta la panaderia colombiana, espero sorprenderlo no solo a el si no tambien a todos los empleados esta semana, cuando prepare pandebono para colocar en la linea de desayuno, algo bien apropiado para esta epoca del ano. Felicidades a ti y tu familia.
Thanks Erica, I just found your site and just in time for Christmas, I am Colombian born but have lived most of my life overseas – Sydney Australia. My Mum is having a Novena Party tomorrow, so I am going to attempt this recipe and the one for Natilla…. fingers crossed.
Thank you, it is great to see Colombian food being celebrated.
Happy holidays
hi, i just made them but they don’t seem to rise much. Just kind of flat. Not sure what I may have did wrong. I tried to be exact.
Please give the weight of the cheeses.
I made these Christmas morning while everybody else was going crazy opening gifts. They were perfect! The texture and flavor were right on. The only thing is that it makes 12 very small pandebonos (bit smaller than a golf ball). So if you want, you can make them bigger and only end up with about 6 or double the recipe. But I’m telling you, these were amazing!
Aye que rico!!!! Gracias Erica<3
This was wonderful of you to post. I miss home, and I just moved to a new city, Philadelphia, to my surprise I found a good amount of fellow Colombianos!! It is nice to walk into the local market, and be able to find our food right on the shelf. No more driving, aimlessly, in search of Masarepa. YAY!!
Eugénia
I often make this for potlucks and other gatherings, and it’s always a crowd-pleaser!
In New York you can find the ingredients at the Compare Foods market chain. Im making them tomorrow!
For the Canadians: Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour (I buy it at my local grocery store). In Saskatchewan I can get Queso Fresco (similar to Feta) at a little foreign food store (Tony’s, Regina – comes from Calgary). So I think other Canadians should be able to find it too! ;o)
Erica: The Queso Fresco I used reminded me a lot of Feta, so I combined it with Havarti as it is the closest in texture I can think of for the Quesito I ate in Medellin. Have you ever used it as a substitute?
The Queso Fresco and the Havarti (grated fine) gave me the best results (I have made this recipe a couple of times)
Mil Gracias Erica!
Elann- I have to try it next time! thank you for your comment. I appreciate it
I have tried this recipe on numerous occasions. Not only is it easy to follow ,
it is always perfect. I get lots of complements .
Very tasty and easy to make we all loved this recipe.
Estoy en Illinois en donde puedo encontrar yuca flower :-S?????? Please!
Looks delicious, found this recipe just in time, I am about to go grocery shopping. Just my style, simple but delicious, never had it before but I say delicious because
I think the ingredients will prove to be a good mix.Hopefully this will be my project for tomorrow . Hope I do justice.
A big thank you.
Hi Erika, Thank you so much for the recipe. I prepared some masato last week and, since in Bucaramanga we accompany this drink with pan de bono, I decided to look for the recipe. I found your recipe which it was very easy and I made them. The only question I have is how to make them grow? I divided the mixture in 12 portions and I think they were kind of small. Should I add some baking powder or baking soda, or may be some yeast? Please advise. Thanks.
Erika,
Folks having problems finding the flour to make these should look for it under the ‘manioc’. Cassava, yucca and manioc are all the same thing. Most health food stores carry this. It also makes a wonderful pizza crust for those who cannot tolerant gluten.
Keep up the good work!
Jen
Amazing!!! I overcooked them the first time I made them and my boyfriend still loved them! I will be making this over and over again.
I made these last week and came out delicious…grated, not as big as I would have liked, but the wonderful taste was there. At least I know that I’ll have to double the recipe next time in order to accomodate my family’s apetite! Thanks for sharing this recipe Erica!
re: Julia, It’s pronounced approximately Pan de ono.
I assume this feta/queso fresco cheese mixture replaces the traditional Colombian costeno cheese because my mom never had feta in the house. I will re-post my comparisons once I get my hands on some yuca harina. Thanks for this and all of your recipes. This site is a gold mine!
Thomas- Yes!!!! I used feta, because it is close to “Queso Costeño” in flavor and texture and I don’t find it here in the USA!
My sister made those yesterday for a brunch and they were so delicious! I came to print the recipe. Thank you for all your wonderful Colombian recipes. I love your site.
For people in the states and Canada looking for yuca flour: you can often find it in Asian markets as tapioca flour or tapioca starch (it´s often a Thai brand). Also, I´ve tried making pandebono with regular cornmeal and it definitely did not work.
We live in Miami and are lucky to have a couple of places to buy great pan de bono, but my husband and I have tried a few different recipes to make our own at home. After I found your recipe, I tried it out today, and my husband (who is from Cali) ate up most of them! The kids and I liked them, too. They’re definitely the best we’ve tried at home. I don’t have a food processor, so I tried the blender (didn’t work) but ended up just cutting the flours and cheeses together and mixing them by hand in a bowl before adding the egg. I think next time I will use a little less feta (ours was very salty) and a little more quesito colombiano, and maybe a tsp of sugar. But this is definitely a winning recipe for us, and we’ll be using it again! I’m now eager to try your other recipes, since it’s hard to find Colombian recipes that are easy to follow and written in English with English measurements instead of metric. Thanks!!
Hi Tania! Would you mind telling me what you changed to the original recipe and instructions? I did the same exact thing, and found it too salty. I used a blender and it didn’t really work and it came out nothing like the picture. I still enjoyed this recipe, but I will have to make this for about 30 people soon. What did you change to it? Thank you in advance.
If any one felt as though the amount of feta was too salty how much would you guys decrease it by? I love pandebono, this will be my first time making it and my family is not a big fan of food that is too salty. An quick response would be greatly appreciated
Thank you!
It seems that the Colombian and the Brazilian cuisine have a lot of similar dishes. Pandebono is very similar to pao de queijo. Anyway, a must try because this cheese bread is simply delicious – even more with a very good Colombian or Brazilian coffee
Chris – welovechicken.com
I haven’t tried this recipe yet, hope to soon. I’m surprised the dough will hold together with so little moisture. The Queso Fresco locally available, when shredded, has the consistency of mozzarella. I haven’t had much experience with Feta, other than what is sold crumbled for topping salads.
Sounds like a fairly solid dough.
I tried it, I liked it, my Colombian wife approved and recognized it as pandebono.
I don’t have a food processor capable of doing the job, so it was the “old fashioned way”.
It is a fairly heavy, dry dough. I will try letting the cheese sit out overnight to warm up more next time, perhaps be more generous with the cheese, or add a small portion of cottage cheese for more moisture.
just made the pan de bonos, they look and taste like the ones from the Colombian bakeries in Miami. Living away from Miami i have to make everything from scratch. I added 1Tablespoon of sugar before mixing the dough. Next time I’ll add 2 Tablespoons. I like them a little sweet. great recipe Erica thanks.
La mejor pagina para recetas colombianas. Me encantan todos los platos.
Hi Erica, My husband made these pandebono last night and they came out amazing! Just as good or better than the Colombian bakery we usually go to. Now we can make them at home and enjoy them fresh out of the oven! Thanks so much, I really enjoy your site and can’t wait to make more of your recipes.
Marisa-Thank you for your feedback!
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