Foul Akhdar Bi Zeit (Vegan Green Broad Beans)

Foul Akhdar Bi Zeit is a popular Lebanese recipe of fresh green broad beans in a garlicky coriander and extra virgin olive oil sauce.

Some links on this page are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you purchase via those links. Thank you for supporting Plant Based Folk! To learn more about affiliate links on Plant Based Folk, please read the Privacy Policy & Terms of Use.

Jump to:

• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🔪Cooking Instructions
• 💭Recipe Tips
• 💡Recipe Variations
• ⏲️Cooking Time
• ❓FAQ
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Community

Every year without fail, mum grows broad beans aka fava beans in her garden. It's an abundant plant, harvesting is so much fun as we get several kilos from it. I love being able to pick the fresh green broad beans straight from the plant and munching on them.

As you can see from the below video, the green fava beans were freshly harvested to make this Foul Akhdar Bi Zeit and transformed into a meal of garlicky & coriander green broad bean deliciousness.

My mum has been quite pleased with the fact that I am sharing recipes with the world, and she would like to join in on the fun. So I agreed with her that every Friday we would cook together and I would share them via Plant Based Folk and all the attached social media. This is the first recipe with her featuring in video.

Foul akhdar bi Zeit is a simple Lebanese meal and is also prepared across the mediterranean. Foul is the arabic word for broad bean/fava bean. Akhdar translates to 'green' and bi zeit means 'in olive oil'. This green broad bean dish is accidentally vegan and gluten free.

Foul is pronounced as "fool" in English and may also be seen written in menus as 'ful'. In our Lebanese diet, foul is eaten both fresh and raw.

Let's learn how to cook green broad bean

🥘 Ingredients

• 3 kg Fresh Green Broad Beans de-stringed and chopped
• 2 large brown onions diced
• 1½ head Garlic fresh and minced
• 2 sml Red chilli Optional
• 1 tbsp Ground Coriander
• 1½ cups Fresh coriander chopped
• 2 cups Olive oil* Extra virgin
• 1 tbsp Salt & Pepper to taste
• 2½ cups Water

🔪Cooking Instructions

Mise En Place

• Step one - Measure out all ingredients

Preparing Green Broad Beans

• Step two - Wash, de-string and cut green broad beans into bite sized pieces

Prepare all veggies

• Step three - Peel and dice onion into small pieces
• Step four - Peel and crush garlic
• Step five - Wash and chop fresh coriander. Getting rid of the tougher stem section. Or measure out frozen chopped coriander.
• Step six - Optional - finely chop red chilli

Cooking

• Step seven - In a large pot, heat ½ cup EVOO over high heat and add chilli (optional)
• Step eight - Add onion and garlic. Sweat until translucent
• Step nine - Add in ½  cup EVOO
• Step 10 - Stir onions and garlic thoroughly for about 10 minutes and then add another ½ cup EVOO. Repeat stirring and add remaining EVOO
• Step 11 - Add (fresh or frozen) coriander (cilantro) and fry off about 10 minutes
• Step 12 - Add ground coriander and salt & pepper and fry until golden brown
• Step 13 - Add fresh green broad bean and water. Stir all contents through
• Step 14 - Reduce heat to medium and allow broad bean to cook for about 50 minutes until wilted. Stir every 10-15 minutes.
• Step 15 - Serve with juice from the bottom of the pot and Lebanese bread

💭Recipe Tips

• Prepare the fresh broad beans right before you start cooking as the cut areas will turn black if prepared too in advanced. This is part of their bruising process.
• De-stringing broad beans is important, as it's unpleasant eating bean string
• If you like lemon, add a squeeze of lemon at the end when serving

💡Recipe Variations

• Frozen green broad beans can be used instead

⏲️Cooking Time

There are two parts to cooking foul akhdar bi zeit

• Sweating the onion, garlic and coriander - this takes about 15-20 minutes on high heat
• Stewing the green broad beans - this takes approximately 50 minutes on low-medium heat

❓FAQ

📖 Recipe