Southwest chicken pasta salad

Here's another recipe whose inspriation came from the $5 dinner mom's cookbook, but I totally changed it up.  It really is only the same as the original in that it has black beans, noodles and chicken.  It turned out really well.  You can eat it cold or hot, but I liked it a lot better hot.  Heated up it reminded me of an enchilada casserole or something.  I also loved that it was super easy.  It did make a ton though.  I could probably freeze half of it, or leave out 1/2 of the noodles next time.

Ingredients

• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can corn, rinsed and drained
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained (15 oz)
• 1 can dice green chilies (4 oz)
• 2 cups cooked chicken
• 1/2 container of taco sauce
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 16 oz. package noodles (I used bowtie, but you could use any)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• cheddar jack cheese -to taste

Directions

1. Cook noodles according to package directions.  Rinse and drain.  
2. In a large bowl, combine taco sauce, cumin, garlic, tomatoes, black beans and corn.  Stir until well blended.  Add chicken and noodles.  Stir to combine.  (After this I refrigerated mine because we went to the pool and I kind of planned on eating this cold - you can choose to do that to let flavors blend if desired, or not.)
3. Stir in 1/2-1 cup of cheese.  If heating, you can combine everything in the noodle bowl and stir until cheese melts.  I just topped each individual serving with additional cheese and heated it for 30 seconds to 1 minutes in the microwave depending on serving size for those who wanted to eat it warm.