Culinary Explorer

A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.

Discover Culinary Explorer
Coração de Frango no Espeto

Coração de Frango no Espeto

Created by

You think chicken hearts are restaurant food or brave-person food. Wrong. Salt, garlic, lime, a hot espeto, and the discipline not to overcook them: that's the skewer everyone eats first.

Appetizers & Snacks
Brazilian
BBQ
Outdoor Dining
Game Day
35 min
Active Time
10 min cook•45 min total
Yield4 snack servings, or 2 servings with rice and beans

You look at the little tray of hearts and hear that quiet 'isso não é pra mim' before you've even touched the salt. I know the face. People say miúdos as if the kitchen suddenly became a bravery contest. Nonsense. It's chicken, small and quick, and cozinhar não é dom, é um aprendizado.

At a churrasco, this is the skewer that vanishes while the bigger cuts are still making promises. At home, it's even better: cheap, real, and exactly the sort of thing that turns arroz soltinho, feijão, and couve into a pê-efe with a little smoke on it. A country stays itself in these plates, not in speeches. Rice, beans, something from the pan or grill, something green. Dinner.

The method is plain. Clean the hearts without fuss, season with coarse salt, garlic, a little oil, and lime, then put them over heat hot enough to brown before the inside dries. Pack them too tightly on the skewer and they'll sweat. Keep them too long over the fire and they'll turn rubbery and sulk. Give them space, turn them often, and stop when they're browned, juicy, and cooked through.

No packet, no powder pretending to be churrasco. Anota aí: salt, fire, attention. That's all.

Chicken hearts on skewers are a familiar part of Brazilian churrasco, especially in rodízio-style churrascarias that spread from southern barbecue culture through Brazilian cities in the mid twentieth century. The cut's popularity is practical: hearts are small, cheap, quick over the fire, and suit the older whole-bird habit of not wasting the pieces outside the breast-and-thigh story. In many backyard cookouts, coração de frango is passed early, before the larger cuts finish, which is why people remember it as the skewer that disappears first.

The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.

Discover Culinary Explorer

Ingredients

chicken hearts

Quantity

500 g (about 1 lb)

trimmed

coarse salt

Quantity

1 1/2 teaspoons

crushed a little if the crystals are large

garlic

Quantity

3 cloves

finely grated or minced

neutral oil

Quantity

1 tablespoon

fresh lime juice

Quantity

1 tablespoon

black pepper

Quantity

1/2 teaspoon

freshly ground

lime

Quantity

1

cut into wedges, for serving

simple farofa (optional)

Quantity

1 cup

vinagrete (optional)

Quantity

1 cup

Equipment Needed

  • •10 short metal skewers or bamboo skewers soaked for 30 minutes
  • •Charcoal or gas grill
  • •Rimmed tray
  • •Tongs
  • •Instant-read thermometer, optional but useful

Instructions

  1. 1

    Trim the hearts

    Put the hearts on a rimmed tray and look at them one by one. Trim away any tough pale tubes and large flaps of white fat, but leave a thin bit of fat attached. Press each heart gently; if a dark clot comes out, wipe it away with paper towel. Don't rinse them under the tap, because raw chicken water splashes around the sink and nobody asked for that nonsense. The hearts should look plump, pink-red, and tidy, not stripped bare. That little fat helps them dourar and stay juicy.

    If the hearts smell sour, feel slimy, or sit in a grey puddle, cook something else. Poor ingredients are not a moral test. They're just poor ingredients.
  2. 2

    Season and rest

    Put the hearts in a bowl with the coarse salt, garlic, oil, lime juice, and black pepper. Toss with your hands for 30 seconds, until every heart is glossy and the garlic is spread evenly. Cover and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes. The oil helps the seasoning cling and helps the surface brown; the lime wakes the flavor up, but too much time in acid tightens the meat, so don't leave it all afternoon.

    If all you have is fine salt, use 1 teaspoon instead of 1 1/2 teaspoons. Same spoon, different crystal, different salting power. Anota aí.
  3. 3

    Heat the grill

    Heat a charcoal or gas grill to high and clean the grate. Oil it lightly. If you're using bamboo skewers, soak them in water for 30 minutes before threading so they don't burn before dinner happens. The fire is ready when you can hold your palm about 12 cm, or 5 inches, above the grate for only 2 seconds. Hearts are small; a weak fire makes them leak juice and dry out before they brown.

  4. 4

    Thread the skewers

    Thread each heart through the thickest part, 5 or 6 hearts per short skewer, all facing roughly the same direction. Let them touch lightly, but don't mash them together. Packed hearts trap moisture and cook grey at the sides. A little room lets the heat hit the meat instead of steaming the pile.

  5. 5

    Grill and turn

    Lay the skewers over the hottest part of the grill. Cook for 2 minutes, turn, and keep turning every 2 minutes until the hearts have deep brown spots, crisp little edges, and a glossy surface, 8 to 10 minutes total. If flames lick hard at the fat, move the skewers aside for a moment, then put them back. The hearts are done when the juices run clear and an instant-read thermometer in the thickest heart reads 74°C, or 165°F. Pull them then. Past done, they go from juicy to rubbery fast.

    No outdoor grill? Use a heavy cast-iron pan over high heat with a thin film of oil and cook the hearts in batches, 3 to 4 minutes per side. You lose the smoke, not dinner. Crowd the pan and they'll boil grey in their own juice, and we'll both be annoyed.
  6. 6

    Rest and finish

    Move the skewers to a plate and let them rest for 3 minutes. Squeeze a little lime over the top and add a tiny pinch of coarse salt only if they need it. Resting isn't ceremony. It lets the fierce heat calm down so the first bite stays juicy instead of spilling everything onto the plate.

  7. 7

    Serve the plate

    Serve the skewers right away with lime wedges, farofa, and vinagrete if this is churrasco food. For dinner, slide the hearts off the espeto onto arroz soltinho with feijão and couve. The browned juices season the rice, the beans carry the plate, the greens keep it honest, and the pê-efe is solved without a packet pretending to help.

Chef Tips

  • •Buy hearts that look deep rose and glossy, not dull grey or brown. They should smell clean, never sour. If the tray looks tired, leave it there and buy eggs. Dinner has options.
  • •Leave a little fat. Trim the tough pale tubes, not the soul out of the thing. That small fat cap bastes the heart over the fire and helps it brown.
  • •Skip the powdered churrasco seasoning. It's salt and perfume pretending to be flavor. Garlic, coarse salt, lime, and a hot grill do the work cleanly.
  • •Cleaned hearts from the butcher are an honest shortcut. You pay a little more and save time, but still inspect them. A Tuesday is a Tuesday, but your eyes still have a job.
  • •If you're making this for people who say they don't eat miúdos, don't argue a speech at them. Cook the skewer properly, put it on the table, and let the first bite do the teaching.

Advance Preparation

  • •The hearts can be trimmed up to 24 hours ahead. Keep them covered in the refrigerator and season only when you're closer to cooking.
  • •Season the hearts 20 to 30 minutes before grilling. Do not leave them in lime juice overnight, because the acid keeps working and tightens the texture.
  • •If using bamboo skewers, soak them for 30 minutes while the hearts rest in the seasoning.
  • •Leftovers keep for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. Chop them into rice and beans the next day instead of reheating them hard and drying them out.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 115g)

Calories
185 calories
Total Fat
11 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
300 mg
Sodium
980 mg
Total Carbohydrates
2 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
0 g
Protein
20 g

Note: Chef personas and recipes are created with AI assistance. Cook with care: follow safe food-handling practices, check doneness with a thermometer when needed, and adapt for allergies and your kitchen.

Where cooking meets culture.

Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.

Discover Culinary Explorer

More from Churrasco & the Gaúcho Fire

Browse the full collection
Costela de Chão no Fogo de Chão

Chef Juliana

Costela de Chão no Fogo de Chão

You think slow ribs are a restaurant trick. They aren't. Coarse salt, low coals, and time make beef ribs tender enough to pull apart with a spoon.

Costela de Cordeiro no Sal Grosso

Chef Juliana

Costela de Cordeiro no Sal Grosso

You don't need churrasco blood in your veins. You need coarse salt, quiet coals, and the patience to let lamb ribs soften before they brown.

Espeto de Legumes na Brasa

Chef Juliana

Espeto de Legumes na Brasa

You don't need meat to earn a place on the churrasqueira. Cut the vegetables evenly, season with real garlic and lime, and let the coals turn them sweet, soft, and smoky.

Farofa de Churrasco

Chef Juliana

Farofa de Churrasco

You think farofa is just dry crumbs beside the meat. Wrong. Toast the cassava flour slowly in butter and onion, and it becomes the side that catches every good drop on the plate.