Comforting and buttery gigantes plaki, or Greek giant baked beans, with tomatoes and olive oil make a satisfying vegetarian dinner any night of the week. Or, you can serve them at room temperature over crusty bread as an appetizer!
Gigantes plaki is a classic Greek dish of tender baked beans, swimming in a chunky tomato sauce with lots of good extra virgin olive oil.
The term plaki, pronounced Plah-KEE, refers to a Greek cooking method where the food is baked or roasted with plenty of tomatoes, veggies, and extra virgin olive oil. Remember this Greek baked fish with tomatoes and onions called psari plaki? Well, these Greek beans also belong to the plaki genre. It’s basically the Greek version of classic butter beans.
I’m grateful to Dorothy, a reader who e-mailed me about a baked bean casserole that her favorite Greek restaurant in Vancouver served. She turned me on to Gigantes plaki, or giant Greek baked beans, which is truly a textbook Mediterranean diet meal where a couple humble cans of beans are transformed into dinner that is satisfying and healthy.
You can never have enough bean recipes to save dinner! I loved it so much that I included the recipe in my cookbook.
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Ingredients to Make Gigantes Plaki
Gigantes plaki take just a handful of simple ingredients. There are three simple components to this recipe: the beans, the chunky tomato sauce, and the garnish or finishing touches. Here is what you need to make giant Greek beans:
Beans
Because traditional gigantes beans are not as easy to find, unless you have access to a Greek or Mediterranean grocery store near you, you can use large butter beans, lima beans, or the largest white beans you can find. And yes, canned beans are fine in this quick recipe.
Tomato sauce
You’ll need some good extra virgin olive oil (like our peppery Early Harvest EVOO), a can of diced tomatoes, and chopped onions, carrots, celery, and garlic, which make the tomato sauce hearty and delicious. To season the sauce, you’ll need bay leaf, oregano, thyme, parsley, and a dash of cinnamon.
Garnish
I like to finish this dish with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some crumbled creamy feta. Or, omit the feta if you want to keep it vegan.
How to Make this Recipe
- This simple baked beans recipe begins with the chunky tomato sauce in a big cast iron skillet or oven-safe pan. You’ll toss the onions, carrots, celery and garlic in a bit of extra virgin olive oil until softened, then you’ll add the diced tomatoes from a can (with their juices) and season.
- From there, just add the drained and well-rinsed can of beans (I used butter beans)to the sauce. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake at 350°F for about 20 to 30 minutes or until the mixture thickens and the beans are super tender.
- When the gigates are ready, top them with a good drizzle of olive oil and finish with some crumbled feta cheese.
Gigantes Plaki: Light Dinner or Snack
I’m a big fan of gigantes beans as a simple vegetarian dinner with nothing more than a side of crusty bread and maybe a big Greek salad. This white bean recipe also makes a great side next to other things like keftedes or baked chicken drumsticks.
But gigantes plaki are also often served as mezze or an appetizer at room temperature over some bread. Simple and delicious!
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Early Harvest- Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil
This high-quality cold extracted and unfiltered EVOO has a perfectly balanced complexity- rich green and fruity, with a peppery finish!
Gigantes Plaki (Greek-Style Baked Giant Beans)
Ingredients
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 large onion, roughly chopped
- 1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- Kosher salt
- 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juices
- 6 Tablespoons (3 fluid ounces) water
- 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
- 1/2 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
- 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 dried bay leaf
- 1 (15-ounce) can butter beans, drained and rinsed (or the largest beans you can find)
- Creamy feta cheese, crumbled
- Rustic bread, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Saute the vegetables: In a large oven-safe skillet set over medium-high heat, add 1/8 cup olive oil. Once the oil shimmers, add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Season with a pinch of salt (about 1/4 teaspoon). Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables soften, 5-7 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes and spices: Add the tomatoes with their juices and the water. Season with another pinch of salt (about 1/4 teaspoon). Add the parsley, thyme, oregano, red pepper flakes, black pepper, cinnamon, and bay leaf.
- Add the beans: Stir in the beans and cook for 5 minutes over high heat. At this point, taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking, then transfer the mixture to the oven and bake until thickened and the top layer turns a light golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes.
- Finish and serve: Remove and discard the bay leaf. Finish the dish with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of parsley, and a good sprinkle of feta. Serve with rustic bread.
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Notes
- Leftovers & Storage: Gigantes plaki will keep well in the fridge for 4 days or so. You can serve leftovers at room temperature.
- Beans: The giant Greek beans traditionally used in this recipe can be difficult to comeby. Feel free to swap butter beans, cannellini beans, or even navy beans. Really any creamy, white bean will work.
- Visit our Shop to browse quality Mediterranean ingredients including olive oils and spices. (I really like our Early Harvest Greek EVOO in this recipe).
Suzy, thank you for sharing the Greek Gigantes plaki recipe and i look forward to making. Question: can you provide name of stove / range manufacturer. Thank you in advance. John
Hi, John! This is Kate, from the TMD team. Suzy has had oven/stove ranges from Kitchen Aid and Wolf, and would recommend either manufacturer.
Just made this for dinner. Absolutely delicious!
Thanks, Pam! So happy you enjoyed it!
Made this tonight to go with some Greek chicken. It was so good, but I defiantly needed to soak the gigantes longer. They were a little solid for my liking. I will try again for sure. I found dried gigantes from Greece at Whole Foods.
This was absolutely delicious. My toddler grandson loved the large beans. Thank you for a great recipe. It’s a keeper 🙂
Actually the Vegan Feta is quite good and could easily be used to help reach a vegan recipe. I cook some vegan for friends and have adapted several recipes for their requirements for everyone could feast. Thank You for your recipes and I love adapting for both vegan and vegetarian as many of the cheeses and even meat subs can used with good spices and thoughtful prep to suit everyone.
Loved this. Reminded me of our meal of this in Greece
The flavor of the sauce was SO perfect!!! I goofed and put the beans directly in the oven and they took 2 hours in the oven lol. I used Gigantes from Greece too that my aunt sent me. I’ll go to the Greek market this week and get some more to try again. I love this recipe. Thanks for sharing. P.S. I used diced tomatoes that also had Thyme and oregano in it, soooo good!
Oh my goodness!!! This is crazy good! I didn’t have fresh parsley so I used an equivalent measure of a dried herb mix that I got from Israel that has parsley in it. I didn’t want to stop eating it!
I made this following the recipe almost exactly. I didn’t use a bay leaf and I used a can of Lima beans. This dish is very flavorful. My only problem is that the beans were not as soft as I am used to. This is most likely the fault of the actual bean and not the recipe. I would definitely make this again but would try to find the butter beans.
Have food is wonderful and delicious? I can’t wait for the next recipe
I tried this tonight, and it was surprisingly delicious! Easy and quick enough for a weeknight, using ingredients I usually already have. Next time I’m doubling the recipe and using for meal prep for my work lunches! Thanks for the recipe!
This one is definitely great for meal prep! Thanks, Marissa!
I made this last week..it was delicious! So easy to make too. I’ll definitely make it again!
Is this the perfect recipe?? It’s easy to make, absolutely delicious as written, can be easily made vegan/dairy-free, is gluten/nut/sesame/peanut free (we have a lot of food allergies in the family) and doesn’t require any hard-to-get ingredients. I’m not a person who *loves* bean dishes but this one is 10/10.
Can I make this ahead and freeze? If not can I make this a day or two before serving?
Hi, Barbara. You can definitely make this a few days in advance and store in the refrigerator. I think it would be okay to freeze as well, it’s just not something we’ve actually tested before with this recipe.
We’ve made it a couple times now and it’s even better the next day. Enjoy!
Wonderful!! I loved it and I still have half of it left for tomorrow! Thank you once again!
This Greek specialty vegetarian dish adapts easily to other ingredients. I included small white beans and garbanzo, in lieu of the butter beans as I had the aforementioned readily in my cupboard. I also added roasted, cubed acorn squash, julienne strips of yellow and orange peppers and cubed, white potatoes.
Added all the various spices recommended
It proved to be a huge success and we’ll look forward to making it often as a vegetarian offering.