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Turkish Braised Beans with Potatoes and Carrots
Turkish barbunya pilaki is a summertime dish of cranberry beans (also known as borlotti or Roman beans) simmered simply in olive oil with a few aromatics and vegetables. Fresh beans are preferred, but they’re highly seasonal and not widely available in the U.S., so we use dried cranberry beans and we cook them in an Instant Pot using either the pressure cooker or slow cooker function. Barbunya pilaki typically is served at room temperature, or even chilled, as part of a meze spread. We think the beans also are delicious warm as a light vegetarian main with bread alongside or as an accompaniment to roasts and kebabs.
6 to 8
Servings
Tip
Don’t skip the step of soaking the beans. Soaking helps the beans cook evenly and fully tenderize. It’s especially important if using the Instant Pot’s slow cooker function.
FAST: 1¾ hours
Slow: 7½ to 8½ hours
30 minutes
Ingredients
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1
pound dried cranberry beans (see headnote), picked over and rinsed
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Kosher salt and ground black pepper
Directions
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01In a large bowl, stir together the beans, 2 quarts water and 1 tablespoon salt. Cover and let soak at room temperature for at least 12 hours or up to 24 hours. Drain and rinse the beans; set aside. On a 6-quart Instant Pot, select More/High Sauté. Add the oil and onion, then cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic, Aleppo pepper and tomato paste; cook, stirring, until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the beans, potatoes, carrots, 4½ cups water and ½ teaspoon each salt and black pepper, then distribute in an even layer.
Reviews
November 16, 2025
Grew up eating this dish
My father was from Istanbul, so I grew up eating a lot of Turkish dishes. This was one of my favorites. My father passed away years ago and my mother is now in a memory care facility. I don’t remember exactly how this dish was prepared. Tried several times and felt like something was missing. I am going to try this recipe to see if it closely replicates what I grew up eating. Thank you for publishing this, even though I never saw it on the show.
December 28, 2022
Tasty, even the kids liked it
I improvised a fair bit on this one due to what I had on hand. Was a little short on potatoes so I used two onions, threw in some celery, and a couple of jalapeños. I had just made some harissa for another Milk Street recipe so I used that instead of Aleppo pepper. I didn't have cranberry beans, but did have a bag of some Rancho Gordo beans that seemed similar. That was the only problem I ran into. In my stovetop pressure cooker this took about three times as long to get the beans cooked as the recipe suggested, about 80 minutes of cooking time and 60 minutes of resting (since I opened the pressure cooker several times to check on the progress). Might have been the different beans. Anyway, the result was quite tasty. My kids liked it, although the jalapeños made it a bit too spicy for their taste.
December 24, 2025
Turkish braised beans
This is ideal winter fare. The designated cooking time was a little over the mark, the potatoes and beans (Great Northern) a touch mushy. That being said, the lemon and parsley should definitely not be skipped. It needs the brightness of flavor and optics.
May 6, 2023
Good beans but not great
I soaked my beans and used a traditional slow cooker, there was no problem with the texture. It was just a bit bland. But keep promoting turkish cooking, one of my favorite cuisines I'll accompany Chris Kimball to turkey so he can sample the regional differences, grilled meat and meze (ocakbasi) from sivas, excellent baklava from gaziantep, Kurdish specialties from van, etc. Fantastic cuisine! I can give him carpet buying tips too.
June 18, 2022
Delicious, basic food.
Made this the traditional way. Aleppo pepper is a must for authentic regional flavor.
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This recipe is fantastic! I adapted it slightly for a traditional slow cooker: at the end of step 1 I put the beans, potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker, and brought the rest of ingredients to a simmer in a pot on the stove. That was poured into the slow cooker and mixed well, then I cooked the entire mixture for about four hours on 'low'. At that point the beans had just started to break apart, so I lowered the heat to 'warm' and kept it going for another two hours, stirring occasionally until some of the bean starch had thickened the liquid.