Southwest Chicken Pasta with Avocado Sauce
A creamy avocado sauce makes this pasta a wonderful and healthy meal! Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 25 mins
- Cook Time: 7 mins
- Total Time: 32 mins
- Yield: 6 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 14 oz. Tennis Pasta (or any other short shape)
- 2 medium avocados, quartered
- 1 lemon, juiced with zest removed (or substitute 3 limes)
- 4 garlic cloves, halved
- 1 t. kosher salt
- ½ t. black pepper
- 1 cup fresh basil
- 5 T. extra virgin olive oil
- 3–4 chicken breasts, grilled and chopped (or use frozen Tyson Grilled Chicken Breasts!)
- 2 ears of corn cooked & kernels sliced off the cob (or substitute 1 ½ cups canned corn)
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 4 medium tomatoes, chopped, or 8 Campari tomatoes, chopped
Instructions
- Zest lemon and set aside.
- For avocado sauce: place garlic halves, lemon juice, and olive oil in a food processor. Mix until smooth.
- Add the avocado, fresh basil leaves, salt and pepper. Process until smooth and creamy. Set aside or you can make ahead, just cover with plastic wrap, making sure plastic is touching the sauce as well as the sides of the bowl, to help avoid sauce from turning color.
- For the corn, if using fresh, cook ears of corn in microwave in husks. For 3 ears, cook approximately 3 minutes, rotate, and cook another 2-3 minutes. Let cool and then remove husks and slice corn off husks with a sharp knife. Place in a large bowl.
- Bring large pot of water to a boil, add 1 T. salt and pasta to pot. Reduce heat to a medium gentle boil and cook for 6-8 minutes. Drain in colander.
- Add black beans, chopped tomatoes, chicken, and lemon zest to corn in bowl. Add pasta and sauce.
- Toss gently until thoroughly combined. Garnish with fresh chopped basil.
- Serve and enjoy! May want to add some hot sauce on the side to zip it up!
- Serves 6-8.