Southwestern Pasta Salad

"Packed with corn, beans, green chile and peppers, this Southwestern Pasta Salad packs quite a flavorful punch. It’s a great summer side dish! The concept for this Southwestern Pasta Salad actually comes from my mother-in-law’s Antipasto Salad. That pasta salad is easily one of my top 3 favorite summer side dishes. We make it several times each summer – in fact, there have been times when we’ve eaten that pasta salad as a meal by itself. However, the last time we made that Antipasto Salad, I started wondering what would happen if I totally flipped the flavor profile on its head. I settled on southwestern flavors, and that’s how this Southwestern Pasta Salad was born. For the southwestern flare to this pasta salad, I went with a combination of fresh corn, black beans, bell peppers, tomatoes and avocado. The recipe below includes amounts of each, but you can obviously play with the proportions – that’s what makes cooking fun, right? Love avocados? Add an extra 1-2 into the mix. Find a batch of particularly tasty fresh corn? Double (or even triple) the corn in this recipe."