Turkish white-bean meze — cooked haricot or cannellini beans tossed while still warm with thinly sliced onion, parsley, sumac, olive oil and vinegar or lemon, sometimes with tomato. Eaten cold across Turkey as the classic partner to grilled köfte. The famous regional form, Antalya piyazı, breaks from the onion-sumac template entirely: there the beans are bound in a tahini-garlic-lemon tarator sauce and crowned with hard-boiled egg, a version carrying a registered Turkish geographical indication.
The word 'piyaz' was inherited from Ottoman Turkish, which took it from Classical Persian piyāz, 'onion' — the same Persian root that spread the word for onion across the Turkic world. Originally the name denoted onion-based dishes; over the Ottoman period the preparation evolved from a plain onion salad into a structured meze built on boiled legumes, with beans or chickpeas added at some point in its history, and bean piyaz became a staple food of Anatolia in the latter part of the 1800s. The southern coastal city of Antalya developed its own divergent version dressed with tahini tarator rather than onion and sumac; Antalya piyazı was entered in the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office register as a geographical indication (mahreç işareti, an indication of source), registration no. 315, on 29 December 2017. The registration specifies a tarator of tahini, garlic, salt and lemon juice, small matte-skinned 'Sıra'-type dried beans (historically the local Çandır variety), and an optional crown of hard-boiled egg.
Plain piyaz eats clean and bright: the beans are soft but intact, slick with grassy olive oil, sharp with raw onion, sour-fruity from sumac (more rounded than lemon, with a faint astringent grip), the parsley keeping everything fresh. Eaten cold beside a hot, fatty köfte, it cuts and resets the palate. The Antalya version is a different sensation altogether — the tahini-lemon sauce coats each bean in nutty, garlicky cream, the egg adds soft richness, and the whole bowl turns from a sharp salad into something almost velvety.
Beans are flavour sponges, and the key move is to dress them warm: a warm bean's softened starch matrix takes up the oil-and-acid dressing far more readily than a cold one, and as the salad rests the beans release a little starch into the oil, lending a faintly silky body while they drink in onion, garlic and acid. Sumac does the souring without watering the dish down — its tartness comes mainly from malic acid (the apple acid), with citric acid and astringent tannins alongside, a fruitier, softer sour than straight lemon. In the Antalya version the tarator is an emulsion: stirred with lemon and a little water, the tahini first seizes as its sesame proteins and oil tighten, then loosens into a pale, pourable cream as more water is whisked in, so the sauce clings to the beans instead of sliding off.
Variations
The everyday template is onion + parsley + sumac + olive oil + vinegar or lemon, often with chopped tomato, served cold beside köfte. Antalya piyazı replaces all of that with a tahini-garlic-lemon tarator, small local beans and hard-boiled egg, and holds a Turkish geographical indication. Gaziantep makes a celebrated mung-bean version, maş piyazı, also a registered speciality. Home cooks vary the acid (red-wine vinegar versus lemon), and many soak the sliced onion in salt or sumac first to tame its bite; canned beans are a common shortcut for the plain style.
On the Palate
Where Piyaz sits in the Turkish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · 20 min
- 15 min
If using dried beans, soak overnight, then simmer in unsalted water until tender but still holding their shape; drain. (Canned beans: rinse and warm through.)
Watch outCook the beans just until they yield but still hold their shape — a blown-out, mushy bean turns the salad to paste and won't hold the dressing.
- 23 min
While the beans are still warm, slice the onion thinly; for a milder bite, rub the slices with a little salt or sumac and let stand a few minutes.
- 34 min
For plain piyaz, toss the warm beans with onion, chopped parsley, sumac, olive oil and vinegar or lemon, plus tomato if using; season with salt.
Watch outDress the beans while they're still warm — a warm bean's softened starch drinks in the oil and acid far better than a cold one.
- 44 min
For the Antalya version, whisk tahini with crushed garlic, lemon juice, salt and a little water until it seizes then loosens into a smooth, pourable cream, and fold it through the warm beans.
Watch outWhisk the tahini until it first seizes stiff, then loosens back into a smooth pourable cream — that seize-then-slacken is the sign it's ready.
- 53 min
Let the salad rest so the beans absorb the dressing, then taste and adjust acid and salt.
- 61 min
Serve cold or at room temperature; for the Antalya style, top with wedges of hard-boiled egg and a final dusting of sumac.
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