An effective and expeditious method of the synthesis of a highly functionalized piperidines, catalyzed by nontoxic, recyclable and environment friendly sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), via one-pot multi-component condensation of aldehydes, amines and β-ketoesters in water at room temperature, has been developed. This new protocol has advantages such as moderate to high yields of products obtained after simple post reaction workup. Structure of the synthesized compounds 4a–4j have been elucidated based on the 1H NMR, 13C NMR, FT-IR spectroscopy and elemental analysis.