This Fresh Southwest Pasta Salad is my go-to whenever I need to take a dish to a party, and also a favorite summer dinner at our house. It’s great with grilled chicken (Grilled Taco Chicken is a perfect pairing) or by itself as a one-dish dinner. It’s so good and flavorful, packed with veggies, and does well sitting out or in the fridge for while before or during serving. Leftovers are fantastic, too!
Southwest Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb bowtie pasta
- 1 14 oz can black beans drained and rinsed
- 2 roma tomatoes diced or about 3/4 C or halved cherry tomatoes
- 1 large red yellow, or orange bell pepper, diced small
- 1/2 cup sliced green onions
- 1/2 cup frozen fresh corn
- zest from 2 limes
- optional: 8 oz diced cooked chicken this is fantastic
- 1/2 cup Queso Fresco or Cotija Cheese or you could sub grated jack, cheddar or pepperjack
Dressing:
- 6 Tbs fresh lime juice about 3 juicy limes
- 1/4 C white wine or rice vinegar
- 4-5 cloves garlic roughly chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp coriander
- 1/2 tsp kosher or sea salt
- 2 tsp sugar add a touch more if your limes are extra sour/bitter
- 3/4 C canola oil
- 1/2 C roughly chopped cilantro
Instructions
- Boil pasta in salted water according to package directions. While it's cooking, prepare dressing.
- First zest your limes and place the zest in a large salad bowl.
- Place the lime juice, vinegar, garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt and sugar in a blender. (Basically everything except the cilantro and oil) Process until smooth. With the motor running slowly, add the oil in a steady stream until incorporated. Add the cilantro and pulse so it gets broken up, but some pieces still remain in tact.
- When pasta is done cooking, drain and rinse immediately with cold water to cool. Place the pasta in the large salad bowl with the lime zest. Add black beans, tomatoes, diced pepper, green onions, corn (no need to thaw the corn), and chicken if desired. Toss with dressing. Taste, and add additional salt and pepper to taste. For best results, chill for 1 hour before serving. Right before serving, sprinkle cheese on top. Serve with extra lime wedges if desired.
- Makes about 4-6 dinner sized servings or 10-12 side servings
How to Make Southwest Pasta Salad
You can really use a variety of vegetables according to what you like- I’m using black beans, bell pepper, frozen corn, tomatoes, and green onions
Southwest Pasta Salad Dressing
This dressing is based off of our favorite Cilantro Vinaigrette. All of the same flavors, but intensified, because pasta salads so easily soak up dressing and mellow out flavors. Simply mix all of your veggies with some cooked and cooled pasta and pour the dressing over.
Optional Ingredients
I like to sprinkle on the cheese just before serving. Queso Fresco or Cotija is my favorite, or you can use grated pepperjack, jack, or cheddar.
Questions & Reviews
I tripled this for a large outdoor party and everyone loved it. Although it took some time to prepare, it will definitely be part of our meals. I plan to try it with chicken next time, just for dinner. Several people asked for the recipe. I didn’t use the entire triple amount of dressing, but I think it could have used it as it does get soaked up by the pasta. The hardest part of this recipe is actually the zesting and juicing of the limes.
Trying to see the answer to “can you make it the night before”; also, how many times the recipe for about 40 people?
I would prep everything and then toss it with dressing about an hour before serving. As for how much- just look at the serving size and do the math 🙂
I’m making this for a teacher/staff luncheon at school for 100 people. I’m thinking I should prep all the ingredients, cook the pasta, and make the dressing the night before. Then early morning mix it all together with the dressing and chill until I serve it at lunch. I’m kind of worried about the pasta being cooked the night before. Should I wait and do that in the morning? Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for a great recipe.
I had the same question, I wanted to make it for 50 ppl. Le me know how it worked out fr you ?
I’m doubling this recipe for a party, however for most dressing recipes I only use half to 3/4 of the dressing, Is this a recipe I will use the whole dressing, or would a single batch of dressing cover a double batch of pasta?
It probably depends on how much flavor I want, but I thought I’d ask anyway!!
My mouth is already watering! Looks delish! Love your site and use it all the time 🙂
Crystal, I wrote this recipe so one batch of dressing really is the amount you’ll need (or close to it) for one batch of salad. So if you’re doubling the salad, you’ll want to double the dressing too. If you don’t use all of it right away, you might want to add more once it sits for a bit because the pasta will absorb it. Hope you enjoy it!
OH MY DELICOUSNESS. If you are reading these comments trying to see if you want to make this, PRINT IT OUT ALREADY AND MAKE THIS BABY. It’s that good and that’s all I have to say. Thanks for yet another “keeper”, girls. I seriously love you two, and if I ever see you two in real life, watch out because I’m going to hug you and then kiss you. and then never let go of you.
This salad is so good! My husband said it’s so good, it’s like “crack”. He’s not a drug-addict! That’s just code for, “it’s really addicting.” 🙂 My two year old loved it to. It was amazing with the Taco Chicken from your cookbook. We didn’t think it was spicy at all. It’s actually really great for kids too!
Made this yesterday and loved it. My hubby was extremely impressed. He said it is restaurant quality. (Some of my children weren’t impressed, but you don’t know picky until you know my kids). I used penne pasta (it’s what I had) and forgot the tomatoes. Thanks!
I have now made this for the 3rd time and it is insane how excited I get to eat this. I make no changes…at all…(I usually do…to most recipes) Had to use olive oil once since I didn’t have canola and it is very good that way as well. Sometimes I add chicken, sometimes I don’t. Only if I have leftover chicken do I add it. Very good with or without.
This was delicious! I love the lime flavor. Thank you so much for sharing!
I need simple, easy and cheap recipes thanks!! got 2 cans of canned white chicken and i wanna make a pasta salad with {macaroni pasta} for my boyfriends lunch to take to work…..
I made this for an Open House and it was a hit with all our friends and family. The color really set it apart from all the other salads. I received your cookbook for Christmas and love it. I use your recipies everyweek. Thanks for making me look good 🙂
I’ve been nominated to “bring a salad, any salad” to our next family gathering. I found your recipe and cannot wait to try it! Sounds delicious!
Someone else found this recipe and printed it off for me to make for a party. Honestly, I didn’t think it sounded very good. Oops, I was wrong again. Just made it. Used tri-color spirals instead of bow-tie and no cheese. Pretty tasty and at least I know there will be at least one vegetarian dish at the party.
Thanks!
This salad is amazing! Loved It and so did my famiy. We took it to a picnic at the park and shared it. Everyone asked for the recipe. Love your site and your recipes. Thanks for all you do, it is greatly appreciated!
Julie, red wine vinegar would work fine too, and if you don’t have that either, then play around with what you do have. Just do it to taste!
Is there a vinegar I could substitute for the rice wine or white wine vinegar, I don’t have either.
I made this salad to take to a picnic…and it was a hit. I didn’t have tomatoes, so I used avocado and I put in small cubes of pepper-jack. Thanks for such awesome recipes!
My usual rule of thumb is “don’t try a new recipe on a crowd of people” but I always break that rule when using one of yours. I just made this salad to take to a BBQ and you’re totally right…it’s a party in your mouth! No more boring pasta salads for me! Thanks!!
Heh, I was actually just looking for a way to print just the recipe, used my browser’s search feature for “print,” and only found your comment. Guess we’ll be copying and pasting this into Word. 🙂
This looks like a tasty and gorgeous salad! I was assigned to bring a pasta salad to my sister-in-law’s housewarming party this weekend, and came straight to your site because I figured you’d have something Score!
Made this for a Cinco de Mayo party tonight and it was a hit! Thanks so much for the recipe. I left out the coriander and cilantro and it still tasted great!
WOW! So I’m pretty muh obsessed with this pasta salad AND with your site 🙂 I’m definitely going to make this soon! Thanks for the inspiration to better my site, I just started mine 🙂 Glad to be a follower!!
I made this last night and it was delicious. My husband is normally not a fan of pasta salads, and was hesitant about this one, but he loved it and said it can stay on our menu rotation.
Oh my heavens! I tried this tonight for our family and it was absolutely delicious! Maybe not the best meal for toddlers because it has a bit of a bite to it, but WOW! I could not get enough of it. Followed the recipe to a “T”.
I LOVE a good pasta salad–can't wait to try this one out! I have never heard of some of those cheeses, but was wondering if feta would work, since I'm kind of in love with the stuff.
Oops, I skipped through that to get to the recipe. Bought queso fresco and am making this tomorrow. I can't wait to go to sleep!
Denise- I explained in the post that I had a variety of peppers so I used 1/3 of three different colors. So one is plenty 🙂 And yes, dried coriander.
Two questions. One, the pic shows yellow, red AND orange peppers. The recipe says one of them. If I use all 3 is it too much pepper? Two, 1/2 tsp of coriander – is this dried?????
As soon as I decide which cheese to use I am trying this! The dressing sounds amazing.
This salad is fantastic! I made it tonight and left out the chicken. Almost left out the cheese but then added Gorgonzola at the last minute – yum! Thank you! I just found out about your site last week and I want to try a gazillion recipes already!
Did all the prep for this salad last night and put it all together along with the dressing this morning. It is delicious! Definitley a salad I will be bringing to parties, church functions etc. I didn't have any bow tie pasta on hand so I used whole wheat penne and it still tasted delicious and looked nice presentation wise. Thanks for all these delicious recipes, Im off to go prep to make the black bean soup with my leftover cilantro, garlic and cans of black beans!