Servimos o queijo coalho com o vinagrete.

Because for the verb servir, the nós form is the same in the present indicative and the preterite:

• nós servimos = we serve
• nós servimos = we served

So Portuguese uses context to make the time clear.

For example:

• Hoje servimos o queijo coalho com o vinagrete. = Today we serve...
• Ontem servimos o queijo coalho com o vinagrete. = Yesterday we served...

Without extra context, the sentence is grammatically ambiguous.

Portuguese often drops subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

So:

• Servimos o queijo coalho com o vinagrete.
• Nós servimos o queijo coalho com o vinagrete.

Both are correct.

The version without nós is very natural and common. Adding nós can give:

• extra emphasis
• contrast
• clarification, if needed

Since servimos already tells you the subject is we, nós is not necessary.

O is the masculine singular definite article, meaning the.

So:

• o queijo coalho = the queijo coalho
• o vinagrete = the vinaigrette

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English does, especially when talking about a specific dish, a known item, or something being served.

Also:

• queijo is masculine, so it takes o
• vinagrete is also masculine, so it takes o

A useful note: noun endings do not always tell you gender perfectly. Even though vinagrete ends in -e, it is masculine: o vinagrete.

In standard Portuguese, com normally stays separate from the article:

• com o = with the
• com a = with the
• com os = with the
• com as = with the

So com o vinagrete is exactly what you should expect.

This is different from prepositions like:

• de + o = do
• em + o = no
• a + o = ao

There are older or literary contracted forms like co, coa, cos, coas, but they are not the normal modern standard here.

Queijo coalho is the name of a specific kind of cheese, very common in Brazil.

The main noun comes first:

• queijo = cheese

Then the second word identifies the type:

• coalho

So the structure is basically:

• [main noun] + [type/specification]

This is very common in Portuguese food names.

Even if English might use a different structure, Portuguese often puts the general category first and the specific label after it.

Also, queijo coalho is a fairly fixed expression, so learners should treat it as a unit.

Not always.

In Brazilian Portuguese, vinagrete can refer to a dressing or relish that is often made with ingredients like:

• tomato
• onion
• vinegar
• oil
• sometimes peppers and herbs

In Brazil, especially in barbecue contexts, vinagrete may be more like a fresh chopped salsa-style accompaniment than the smooth salad dressing some English speakers imagine when they hear vinaigrette.

So the word is related, but the real-life food can be somewhat different.

In this sentence, the natural meaning is:

• We serve the queijo coalho with the vinaigrette.

So com o vinagrete tells you the cheese is served with that accompaniment.

Grammatically, prepositional phrases can sometimes create ambiguity, but here the most normal interpretation is that vinagrete goes together with queijo coalho as part of the dish.

In other words, it is not usually understood as something like we use the vinaigrette to do the serving. It describes what comes with the cheese.

A rough Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation is:

• queijo ≈ KAY-zhoo
• coalho ≈ ko-A-lyoo
• vinagrete ≈ vee-nah-GREH-chee in many Brazilian accents

A few useful sound notes:

• qu before e sounds like k
• j in Portuguese sounds like the s in measure
• lh is a special Portuguese sound, roughly like ly, though not exactly the same as English
• final unstressed -e in Brazilian Portuguese often sounds like ee or i

So queijo coalho can be approximated as:

• KAY-zhoo ko-A-lyoo

That is only an approximation, but it is a helpful starting point.

Yes, Portuguese could use the plural in some situations, but the singular is very natural here.

In food contexts, the singular often refers to:

• the dish as a category
• a serving of that item
• the menu item in general

So o queijo coalho does not necessarily mean one single tiny piece of cheese. It can mean the dish/item being served.

For example, restaurants often talk about foods in the singular even when the actual portion contains multiple pieces.

If you wanted to emphasize multiple units, then a plural form might be used, depending on the situation. But the singular here sounds normal and idiomatic.

Yes. It sounds natural if a restaurant, host, or speaker is saying what they offer or how a dish is presented.

For example, it could mean:

• what the restaurant serves
• how the dish is typically prepared or presented
• what they served on a particular occasion, depending on context

That said, menus often use shorter noun phrases instead of full sentences, such as just the dish name. But as a complete sentence, Servimos o queijo coalho com o vinagrete. is perfectly natural.