La Vics' Orange Sauce Recipe: Turn Ordinary into Extraordinary

La Vics’ orange sauce recipe is the ultimate proof that there is more to Mexican cuisine than tacos and salsa. Owing its name to the iconic color, the recipe calls for simple ingredients, yet the result is potent, savory, and delicious. The next time you’re having tortilla chips, tacos, or chicken wings, consider spending some time with La Vics’ orange sauce recipe. It’s worth the effort.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• Pro Tips
• La Vics' Orange Sauce Recipe
• Comments

Ingredients

• Tomatoes — 4 pcs., halved
• Vegetable oil — 1 cup
• Salt — 1 tbsp.
• Onion — 1 pc., sliced
• Apple cider vinegar — ⅓ cup
• Guajillo chiles — 2 pcs., stemmed and seeded
• Garlic — 4 cloves, peeled
• Dried Arbol chiles — ½ cup
• Hot water — ½ cup

Instructions

1. Place a wire rack on the highest level of the oven and set your broiler to high, around 500°F (260°C).

2. Place the onion and the tomatoes on a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes.

3. Heat some oil in a pan. Sauté the garlic for a minute or two, until brown. Add both chiles and sauté for another minute.

4. Blend the garlic-chile mixture at high speed.

5. Add hot water and vinegar, and let the mixture rest for five minutes.

6. Then add the tomatoes, salt, and onion.

7. Puree the mixture, once again, by blending at high speed.

Substitutions

• Apple cider vinegar — La Vics’ orange sauce recipe should be made with apple cider vinegar, especially if you are after the same authentic, iconic flavor. But you can use other types of vinegar and get away with it. Our experience was that you could also use red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar, and rice vinegar too.

• Vegetable oil — Instead of vegetable oil for sauteing, we tried avocado oil on our first try, followed by canola oil on the second. Both tries turned out to be perfectly fine.

• Arbol chiles — La Vics’ orange sauce recipe owes its authentic taste to Arbol chile, but that doesn’t mean it is irreplaceable. You would be losing out on a richer flavor, but you use cayenne pepper or paprika instead.

• Tomatoes — It is only normal if you thought that tomatoes are indispensable in La Vics’ orange sauce recipe. Fresh tomatoes would be your best option, but marinara sauce, tomato paste, or even tomato juice could be used as well.

Variations

• A spicy taste — While La Vics’ orange sauce recipe already packs some nutty and earthy flavor, you can always spice things up by increasing the heat. You can do that by adding some jalapeno peppers into the mix. Simply blend them with the rest, but go easy on the peppers since the recipe is already spicy as is.

• A warmer feeling — In a cool and earthy twist, we added some herbs and spices like cinnamon, oregano, and cilantro. While that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, if you’d like to add some flair to your orange sauce, we’d recommend trying this one out.

Equipment

• Measuring cups

• Measuring spoon

• Blender

• Saucepan

• Broiler

• Wire rack

• Baking sheet

• Oven

Storage

• Transfer the leftovers to an airtight container, or a jar with a strong lid. Once stored in your fridge, the orange sauce will last for five days.

• You can also freeze the leftovers. In that case, the leftover orange sauce will last for two months.

Pro Tips

• The tomatoes — While it might seem like a good idea to use tomatoes that have been forgotten in the back of the fridge, we’d strongly recommend using only fresh, ripe tomatoes. La Vics’ orange sauce recipe is only as good as the ingredients used.

• The sweetness — If you suspect that your sauce will be a tad more bitter than intended, you could make La Vics’ orange sauce recipe sweeter by adding a tablespoon of sugar.