Piyaz A Delicious Turkish White Bean Salad

It’s excellent as a side dish or appetizer alongside other Turkish and Mediterranean dishes or as a main dish with pita bread. You’ll love piyaz because it combines creamy white beans and tahini with fresh herbs, tasty olives, and crisp, tangy onions. Dietary Note: this recipe is suitable for a vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free diet.Don’t have time to read the full blog post? JUMP TO RECIPE HERE!

What is Piyaz or Fasulye Piyazi?

How to make Piyaz

Serving suggestions

Variations

Storage & Make Ahead

More bean salads

More white bean recipes

In Turkey, the word Piyaz also stands for a dish made with cooked dry beans, onions, herbs, olives, and sometimes a hard-boiled egg served as a side to meatballs and kebabs. There are several variations of Piyaz. You can make nohut piyazi with chickpeas, or hek-e piyazi with eggs, hisk piyazi with sundried-tomatoes, or piyaz salatasi with onions and sumac. And as you all might have guessed, Fasulye stands for beans. Our Turkish bean salad recipe is adapted from that of Musa Dagdeviren, a great Turkish chef and author of “The Turkish Cookbook,” an incredible collection of more than 500 Turkish recipes. This variation of Piyaz hails from Antalya, a coastal Mediterranean city in the south of Turkey. It differs slightly from a classic white bean salad and is more similar to a tahini salad as it uses tahini sauce for the dressing. I don’t know about you people, but we love anything tossed in tahini, and this salad is one of the most satisfying. It reminds us of a creamy white bean dip but with more texture. It’s almost like a Masabacha, a levantine type of hummus made with mashed chickpeas and tahini. Yes, that’s it. I’d describe it as tender white beans swimming in an ultra-creamy tahini sauce topped with tangy marinated onions, fresh parsley, and savory olives. Enjoy this as part of a mezze platter with other Mediterranean or Middle Eastern recipes. Or have it as a meal with warm pita bread. Afiyet olsun (enjoy)!

For the salad

White beans: you can use dry cannellini beans that you soak for 8 hours, then boil until tender. Or canned cannellini beans. Here’s our guide on how to cook white beans, should you need it. Onions: For a tangier, bolder, and less pungent taste, we recommend using marinated or quick-pickled red onions. Substitute thinly sliced raw red onions for marinated onions. Olives: Get good quality olives preserved in olive oil if possible. We recommend Kalamata Olive or Olive Taggiasche. Flat-leaf parsley: Get fresh Italian parsley. That’s the one used in the Mediterranean. It has a bolder flavor and softer texture than curly parsley.

For the dressing

Tahini: Choose tahini made from 100% hulled sesame seeds. It is best if it is light in color and has a pourable consistency. Avoid dark, pasty, and gritty tahini, as it is bitter and hard to work with. Fresh lemon juice Apple cider vinegar: Substitute white wine vinegar or red wine vinegar. Garlic: A small clove. Sea salt: substitute kosher salt.

Serves well with pickled chilis or jalapeños on top and warm pita bread.

1. Preparing the beans

DRY WHITE BEANS: Soak cannellini beans in water for 8 hours. Drain, rinse, and add to a large pot. Cover with water by 4 inches (10 cm) and boil until tender—about 1 to 2 hours. Drain and add to a mixing bowl. CANNED BEANS: Drain and rinse the cannellini beans and add them to a medium-sized pot. Cover with 1 inch of water and boil for 15 minutes. Drain and add to a bowl.

2. Marinating the onions (optional)

This step is optional. You can substitute marinated onions with thinly sliced red onions. Cut the onion in half and thinly slice it. Add it to a bowl with lemon juice, sumac, and salt. Pinch and massage with your fingers for 1 minute, then set aside to marinate for 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Making the dressing

Add tahini, water, lemon juice, vinegar, and salt to a medium-sized bowl. Whisk well until smooth. Initially, the tahini-water mixture will curdle. That’s normal. Tip: If you just opened your tahini bottle, stir it with a spoon to mix the oil that might have separated from the sesame paste. Keep whisking fast until perfectly smooth. Stir in a clove of crushed garlic, set aside for 5 minutes, and then remove the garlic.

4. Mixing the salad

Pour the tahini dressing over the beans. Stir gently until combined, then taste and adjust for salt. Necessary: Don’t add lemon or vinegar at this stage, as the tahini will curdle, ruining the salad.

5. Plating Fasulye Piyazi

Transfer the Piyaz to a serving platter. Top with the marinated onions, olives, coarsley chopped fresh parsley, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. For example, serve it next to:

Tabbouleh salad Shirazi salad Falafel Chickpea fritters Lentil patties Zucchini fritters Stuffed zucchini Stuffed tomatoes Stuffed peppers

Here’s the Mediterranean white bean salad recipe. Serve at room temperature: Piyazi salad tastes best if served at room temperature. If you store it in the fridge, take it out 15 minutes before serving it. Pourable tahini: Pick one made from 100% hulled sesame seeds, light in color and with a pourable consistency. Avoid dark, pasty tahini as they are often bitter. Refrigerator: Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days. Remove them from the fridge 15 minutes before serving. Freezer: Piyaz is not suitable for freezing.