Piyaz (Turkish White Bean Salad)

Piyaz means “onions” in Kurdish and Farsi.

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.

Here, we are sharing with you one of our favorite Turkish salads, Fasulye piyazi. It’s creamy, indulgent, yet healthy and nutritious.

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 Msabaha or swimming chickpeas.

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)!

Ingredients and substitutions for Piyaz

Quantities are in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

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.
• 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.

US cups + grams measurements in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

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.

You can have Fasulye Piyazi as a lunch or dinner with warm pita bread, or you can have it as an appetizer, meze, or side dish with other Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern dishes.

For example, serve it next to:

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

Mediterranean white bean salad

Our Mediterranean white bean salad features tender and creamy cannellini, fresh herbs, and veggies tossed in a delicious olive oil and lemon dressing.

Here’s the Mediterranean white bean salad recipe.

Make ahead: Piyaz salad is good for meal prep as it keeps well for a few days. As it sits in the fridge, though, it will thicken up. Stir a tablespoon of warm water to bring it back to a perfect creamy consistency.

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.

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