Kuru Fasulye in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it

Name: Kuru Fasulye
Total time: 90 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 400 g dried white beans (cannellini or haricot), soaked overnight; 1 large onion, finely chopped; 2 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tsp red pepper paste; 200 g lamb shoulder in small cubes, optional; 1 tsp salt, black pepper, half a tsp pepper flakes; pilav and pickles to serve

Quick answer

Kuru fasulye is white beans stewed slowly with onion, tomato paste and often a little lamb or pastırma, served with rice pilav and pickles. It is Turkey's most loved everyday dish, the national comfort food, and lokanta restaurants in Istanbul are famous for nothing else. In the UK it appears at lunch in Turkish home-cooking restaurants and is one of the cheapest and most filling plates you can find.

Calories and nutrition

Calories: 560
Protein: 22 g
Carbs: 78 g
Fat: 18 g
Salt: 2.0 g

Portion: One portion of beans, about 300 g, with a serving of pilav.

With lamb ('etli'), add about 120 kcal; high in fibre and protein for the price.

Estimates for a typical portion, based on standard UK and USDA food composition data. Actual values depend on the recipe and the restaurant.

What kuru fasulye is

Dried white beans, soaked overnight, are cooked until tender, then finished in a sauce of onion softened in butter, tomato paste, a little pepper paste and the bean liquid, until the sauce is thick and the beans are creamy without collapsing. The classic Istanbul version adds cubes of lamb or slices of pastırma, the cured spiced beef; the everyday version is meatless. It is served with pilav, rice cooked with a little orzo in butter, and with pickled peppers or cabbage, and usually with a glass of ayran. The combination of beans, rice and pickle is a set meal, kuru fasulye pilav, and it is eaten at lunch.

Why it matters in Turkey

A few lokantas in Istanbul, notably around Süleymaniye, have served only kuru fasulye for generations and have queues at noon. The dish is the measure of a home cook and the meal that Turks abroad miss most. It is not a dish that restaurants aimed at tourists bother with, which is why finding it on a UK menu is a good sign: the restaurant is cooking for Turks. Etli kuru fasulye is with meat, sade is plain; both are correct.

How to judge it

The beans should be whole, tender and creamy, in a sauce that clings rather than pools, and the sauce should taste of butter and tomato with the sweetness of long-cooked onion. It should not be watery, and it should not be sharp with raw tomato paste. It should come with proper pilav, not plain boiled rice, and with pickles. A lokanta that sells out of it by two o'clock is one to return to earlier.

Where in the UK it is done well

Lokanta and home-cooking restaurants in Harringay, Dalston and Enfield make it daily, and a few Turkish cafés in Manchester and Birmingham serve it as the lunch special. The ranking below counts restaurants in our directory whose name signals a lokanta or home cooking.

How to order it

Order kuru fasulye pilav, the set with rice, and add pickles and ayran. Ask for 'etli' if you want lamb in it. It is a lunch dish; go before two o'clock. It costs very little and a portion is a full meal.

Where it's done well

UK councils with the most kuru fasulye specialists, by restaurant name, in our directory.

Restaurants near you

Search by postcode or use your location to find restaurants likely to serve kuru fasulye near you.

Make it at home

Serves 4 · 90 min

Ingredients

400 g dried white beans (cannellini or haricot), soaked overnight
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 tsp red pepper paste
200 g lamb shoulder in small cubes, optional
1 tsp salt, black pepper, half a tsp pepper flakes
pilav and pickles to serve

Method

Drain the beans and simmer in fresh water for about an hour until tender but not breaking. Keep the liquid.
In a wide pan, brown the lamb in the butter and oil if using, then add the onion and cook for ten minutes until soft.
Stir in the tomato and pepper pastes and cook for a minute, then add the beans with enough of their liquid to cover.
Season and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes until the sauce is thick and the beans creamy. Rest ten minutes before serving with pilav and pickles.

Do not salt the beans until they are tender or they stay tough. The dish is better reheated the next day.

Related dishes

Meze

Meze are the small cold and hot dishes that open a Turkish meal: hummus, cacık, haydari, ezme, stuffed vine leaves, aubergine in several forms, fried liver, halloumi and a dozen more. A meze table is meant to be shared slowly with bread and rakı, and in the UK a spread of six or eight is a full meal for two. Meze is also the best way to eat well in a Turkish restaurant on a budget, and the clearest test of a kitchen's care.

Turkish Breakfast

Turkish breakfast, kahvaltı, is a spread of small plates rather than one dish: white cheese, olives, tomato, cucumber, honey with clotted cream, jams, eggs cooked with sucuk or as menemen, simit and fresh bread, and endless tea in small glasses. In UK restaurants it is sold per person as a 'serpme' spread and has become a weekend event, especially in North London and Manchester, with queues from ten in the morning.