Taze fasulye, or Turkish green beans, is one of the most cooked dishes in Turkish homes during summer. It’s tasty, light, affordable and super easy to make. Just a few simple ingredients like olive oil, green beans, onion, and tomatoes come together for an amazing flavor. If you’ve never tried it before, now’s the time!
Olive Oil Lovers, This Turkish Dish Is for You!
In Turkish cuisine, there’s a whole category of dishes called zeytinyağlılar, which means vegetables braised in olive oil. These dishes are naturally vegetarian, made with seasonal veggies and served at room temperature, which makes them perfect for hot summer days.
Zeytinyagli taze fasulye (green beans cooked in olive oil) is one of the most classic dishes in this category. It’s a simple mix of green beans, onions, tomatoes, and plenty of olive oil.
What makes it different from most green bean recipes around the world is the texture. In this dish, the green beans are cooked until they’re really soft. No crunch here, you want them tender and full of that olive oil and tomato flavor.
About The Ingredients
You can find the full list of ingredients with exact measurements in the recipe card below.
Green beans: The most common types in Turkey are runner beans (çalı fasulye) and romano beans, also known as flat beans (Ayşekadın fasulye). These are ideal for making taze fasulye. But honestly, you can use any green beans you can find. The flavor might be a little different—some beans taste more savory (like the Turkish varieties), while others are a bit sweeter.
Olive oil: This dish uses a generous amount of olive oil, so try to go for a good-quality brand. It really makes a difference.
Tomatoes: We think taze fasulye tastes much better—and more authentic—when made with fresh tomatoes. But canned tomatoes work too if that’s what you have.
Sugar: In Turkey, it’s common to add a pinch of sugar to zeytinyağlı vegetable dishes, but this is totally optional. Feel free to skip it—your dish will still taste great.
Optional Add-Ins
This Turkish style green bean stew is a simple dish and doesn’t really need anything extra. But if you want to boost the flavor a bit, here are some popular additions used in Turkey:
- Add chopped green or red bell peppers, or Turkish green peppers (the long sweet kind) and cook them with the onions.
- Add about 1 tablespoon of tomato paste (domates salçası), or pepper paste (biber salçası), or a mix of both. If you want to try this version, stir in the paste after the onions are cooked, then add the beans and continue with the recipe.
- Add 2–3 cloves of garlic along with the tomatoes.
- Add 1–2 diced potatoes along with the green beans.
It’s all about personal taste. We sometimes add garlic, peppers and potatoes, but we usually skip the pastes, as they tend to overpower the delicate flavor of olive oil.
How To Make Taze Fasulye
Full instructions are in the recipe card below.
Just snap off the ends and break each green bean into 2–3 pieces.
If you're using string beans, you'll need to remove the string. To do this, snap a small part off one end and pull the string down along the bean. Then do the same from the other end in the opposite direction.
Next, sauté the chopped onions in olive oil. Add the green beans and cook them covered for 3–5 minutes. Then add the tomatoes, peppers, salt, and sugar. Give everything a good stir.
Cook until the beans are soft. Remove from heat and drizzle a bit of extra olive oil on top. Let it rest for 15 minutes before serving.
Serving Suggestions
Zeytinyağlı taze fasulye is best served at room temperature. That’s how we usually enjoy it in Turkey, especially during summer. Letting it rest a bit helps the flavors come together beautifully.
It makes a great light lunch on its own, especially with some crusty bread to soak up the olive oil and tomato sauce. You can also serve it as a side dish with meat or chicken.
You can also pair it with some fluffy Turkish rice pilaf (şehriyeli pilav) or bulgur pilaf—a classic combo in Turkish homes.
And of course, a bowl of cold yogurt, ayran or a simple cacık (Turkish yogurt with cucumber) makes the meal even more refreshing.
If you are planning to serve it as a part of a meze platter, then you can serve it along with borek, eggplant salad, kabak mucver (fritters) and kisir.
Can I Make It Ahead?
Absolutely! Taze fasulye is actually one of those dishes that gets even better the next day. The flavors deepen as it sits, especially when kept in the fridge overnight.
You can make it a day or two ahead and store it in an airtight container in the fridge. Just bring it to room temperature before serving or enjoy it cold straight from the fridge if you like.
How to Store and Reheat
Let the dish cool completely, then transfer it to an airtight container and keep it in the fridge. It stays fresh for up to 4 days.
Zeytinyağlı taze fasulye is usually served at room temperature or cold, so there’s no need to reheat it. Just take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving.
But if you prefer it slightly warm, you can gently reheat it on the stove over low heat.
If you're wondering whether you can freeze it, the answer is yes, technically you can. But we don’t really recommend it. In our experience, the flavor just isn’t the same after freezing and thawing. It loses that fresh, vibrant olive oil taste we love in this dish. So we think it’s best enjoyed freshly made or from the fridge within a few days.
More Turkish Recipes with Olive Oil
- Bamya (Turkish Style Okra)
- Imambayildi
- Zeytinyagli Enginar (Turkish Style Artichoke Bottoms)
- Zeytinyagli Kereviz Yemegi (Turkish Style Celeriac)
- Zucchini Stew
- Turkish Stuffed Grape Leaves
As always: If you make this recipe, let us know what you think by rating it and leaving a comment below. And post a pic on Instagram too—tag @give_recipe so we can see!
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📖 Recipe
Taze Fasulye - Turkish Green Beans
INGREDIENTS
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 1 pound green beans trimmed and snapped into 3-4 pieces
- 4 medium tomatoes peeled and chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon sugar optional
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil (for drizzling before serving)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan over medium heat.
- Add the chopped onions and sauté until translucent.
- Add the green beans. Cover and cook for 3–5 minutes, then give it a stir.
- Stir in the diced tomatoes. Cover again and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Add salt, sugar (if using), and black pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low.
- Cover and cook for about 30 minutes, or until the beans are soft. Check after 15 minutes. If the tomatoes aren’t juicy enough and the pan looks dry, add ¼ cup of hot water and continue cooking covered for the remaining 15 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Let it cool slightly.
- Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the dish before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.
NOTES
- If the green beans you’re using have strings (fibrous seams), make sure to remove them. To do this, snap off a small piece from one end and pull the string down along the side of the bean. Repeat on the other end if needed.
- Also, keep in mind that some types of green beans take longer to cook. Check the texture at the end of the cooking time. If they’re not soft enough, continue cooking until tender.
NUTRITION
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
MaryAnne Korkut says
Family favorite! I split the wide beans vertically. They seem to cook faster.
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Thanks so much, MaryAnne! Splitting the beans vertically is such a great tip—makes total sense that they’d cook faster that way.
Claudine says
Hi to you both! I tried this recipe yesterday : excellent! Having lived in the UK over 25 yrs, I did enjoy runner beans and grew them - they however tended to be stringy. I had not seen them on the continent until yesterday where I spotted them at my French local farmer shop. I was thrilled to find your recipe which reminded me of what I call an Afghan dish I like to make - pretty much the same but spicier and with aubergines rather than beans. What would you say of adding some chili? Garlic? I also added a bit of nudja…. Love your site - thank you so much for great site and inspiration.
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Hi Claudine!
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, it made our day! 😊 We're so happy to hear you found runner beans and gave this recipe a try.
Garlic sounds absolutely perfect – we actually add it sometimes ourselves, especially when we want that extra depth of flavour. And chili? Yes, please! Why not! A bit of heat goes really well with the sweetness of the beans.
We love that you mentioned aubergines too. We cook them in a very similar way! But when it comes to aubergines, we tend to be even more generous with the garlic, and often add either chili or sweet red or green peppers to bring out their rich flavour.
We’re not familiar with nudja, but it sounds intriguing – we’ll have to look it up!
Thanks again for your kind words and for sharing your version with us!
Best,
Zerrin & Yusuf
Claudine says
Thank you so much for taking time to reply. Here is a link to the nudja - for a little bit of spice. On the lookout for more of your recipes.
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Hi Claudine,
Thank you so much for your kind reply and for sharing the link, that was really thoughtful of you! We just wanted to let you know that, although it was helpful for us to learn about it (and we really appreciate that!), we had to remove the comment with the link. External links in the comments can sometimes cause issues for our site in the long run, so we try to keep things clean that way.
Thanks again for understanding, and we’re so happy to hear you’re on the lookout for more recipes. Hope you find lots of inspiration!
Maggi says
Have just made this dish, was so delicious. One of my favourite meals in Turkey and it tastes as good!!! Many thanks xx
Makos(@thehungrybites) says
Hey, Zerrin!
Greta recipe! This type of beans is one my favorites! 🙂
Zerrin says
Thanks Makos! Simple but incredibly tasty, isn't it?
Mariam says
Sublime !!!This is made in Middle East too ! Same way .. eaten cold or room temperature .. scooped up with pita bread and slice of raw onion in tucked in ... the raw onion adds a pungent note to the rich flavor ..it's so delicious
Zerrin says
Thank you Mariam! The way you describe it makes my mouth water. Love the idea of pita and raw onion. YUM!
Ayse says
Hello Zerrin, I LOVE this meal but don't know where to find green beans. I recently moved in to NYC from Istanbul, I found sting beans in the market, however, they are not the ones we use back in Turkey 🙁 do you have any recommendations, where can I find these beauties?? 🙂
Zerrin says
Hi Ayse! It is a simple yet favorite summer dish of all of us, isn't it? I know the produces there might be different from the ones in Turkey. Are there any farmer's market in your area? Maybe you can find it there. I'm not sure though whether you can find Ayse Kadin beans there if that's what you're looking for 🙂 Best!
Rita says
Hi, this is Rita in Sweden. My father is Greek and we used to eat this all the time when we visited Greece. I LOVE it, thanks for the recipe 🙂
Zerrin says
Hi Rita! Turkish and Greek cuisines have a lot in common and this recipe is just one of them. Probably you know tzatziki from Greece. We have the same dish with the name of cacik. A lot more examples like this. Happy to hear that you love this green bean recipe. If you have any questions about any recipe here, feel free to ask me. Cheers from Turkey!
KalynsKitchen says
Hello again! Just letting you know that I just featured it this morning in my 25 Deliciously Healthy Low-Carb Recipes round-up. Hope a lot of my readers will come over here and check it out!
Zerrin says
Hi Kalyn! Thank you so much for including my recipe in your round-up. I do hope so 🙂
KalynsKitchen says
I had this in Turkey, and it was fantastic!
Zerrin says
Yes, I remember that Kalyn. You see, how easy it is to make it.
Adina says
My grandma used to cook this kind of green beans with tomatoes all the time. I haven't had them in a long time, thanks for the reminder. 🙂
Zerrin says
Hi Adina! Happy to remind you your grandma's dish. They always know better and more than us, don't they? Hope you like my recipe as much as your grandma's. Cheers!
sue|theviewfromgreatisland says
I would LOVE this as a main course!
Zerrin says
Hi Sue, I don't need another dish when I have this amazingly tasty green beans indeed.