BBQ Chicken Southwest Pasta Salad

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Pasta Salad is a great Summer BBQ side dish.  I like this one even better because it has BBQ sauce in it :).  After making my BBQ Chicken Southwestern Wraps I still had all the ingredients minus avocados (although I think they would be a great addition) and I was still craving that yummy BBQ/Ranch dressing mixture so I thought why not try it in a pasta salad! The result was delicious or else I would not be sharing the recipe with you.

If your like me playing with your recipes comes naturally so play with the ingredients to suit your taste.  If you plan to make the salad ahead I would not put the dressing on until the day you plan to serve it, I found that it lost some of its BBQ flavor the next day.  Also I don’t like how onions taste in pasta salad or potato salad when it has sat overnight, they seem to take over the whole dish so keep that in mind. If you are new to making pasta salad make sure your pasta is cooled completely before adding the sauce or it will soak up your sauce and the salad will be dry.  If your salad does soak up the dressing after a day no problem just try adding a little more mayonnaise mixed with BBQ sauce and or ranch dressing.

BBQ Chicken Southwest Pasta Salad

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Ingredients:
3 cups uncooked shell pasta
1/2 cup of frozen corn rinses and thawed
1/2 can drained and rinsed black beans
1/2 bell pepper chopped
1 large tomato chopped
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
green onions or red onions chopped (optional)
8 slices of cooked bacon chopped
2 chicken breasts grilled and chopped bite size
1/4 BBQ sauce
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 Ranch Dressing

Directions:
Step 1: Wash and prepare all the vegetables. Cook and chop bacon, chop grilled chicken or rotisserie chicken.
Step 2: Measure out 3 cups of dry uncooked medium shell pasta. Fill a large stock pot with water about 8 cups, add some salt and boil water. When water is boiling add the pasta and cook according to package directions.
Step 3: While pasta is cooking mix the sauce together by combining the mayonnaise, BBQ sauce and ranch dressing in a small bowl.  In a medium size bowl mix all the veggies together.
Step 4: In a medium large bowl put cooked and cooled pasta, chicken and bacon in, then add the veggies and sauce. Stir the salad salad well and regrigerate for a few hours.

Tagged as: bbq, chicken, pasta, salad