A Mexican-inspired pasta salad full of sweet corn, charred peppers

Just like rajas, this dish gets rich and creamy with cotija cheese and tangy sour cream

Summer is a vibrant and exciting time for pasta. Pasta gets to shed its usual rules, like saving that salty, starchy pasta cooking water, and it doesn’t really need to be “served immediately.” That’s because in salad form, it’s just not necessary. It can relax at room temperature or be casually chilled. It can mingle and really soak up whatever sauce we make for it. It’s also a time for pasta to enjoy summer’s bountiful vegetables.

As I enter my last stretch of time in Mexico City, there are basically no pasta salads in sight. There are classic and creative pasta dishes at some Italian restaurants that integrate Mexican ingredients like chile de arbol in Bolognese or huitlacoche gnocchi, or ricotta- and hoja santastuffed tortellini in brodo.

That integration of Italian cuisine and Mexican ingredients is my inspiration for this week’s recipe for a summer pasta salad with rajas I’m making at home.

Rajas is a vegetable dish that’s supposedly from Puebla. It is a mixture of freshly charroasted poblano peppers mingled with yellow corn, onion, garlic and some sort of mixture of cream or cheese. It’s sweet, savory, rich and, because the peppers are charred, usually a little smoky, too.

Often it’s served on tortillas as tacos, but it can be a dip, a filling for tamales or even a sauce for a room-temp pasta salad like I wanted here.

Instead of roasting the peppers, I char the corn over my stove, which is an easier way to get that smoky flavor while also deepening the sweetness of the corn. By the way (if you haven’t noticed), this is not a traditional rajas recipe at all. I then saute the mildly spicy poblano pepper with onion, garlic and paprika.

That vegetable mixture forms a base. What really makes this rajaesque is the cheese and cream I add. Crumbles of salty cotija, tangy sour cream, herbs and fresh lime juice make this a refreshing yet satisfying pasta that’s great for lunch, a picnic or a dinner that’s worth writing home (literally for me) about.

Christian Reynoso/Special to The Chronicle Summer Pasta Salad With Rajas is inspired by the creamy roasted poblano pepper and corn dish from Puebla, Mexico.