El Torito -- red sauce not vegetarian. :(

[Hell Hath No Fury]

My Mom loves El Torito, so when she visits we eat there often. I have always ordered enchilads that come with their traditional red sauce. When not at a Tex-Mex place, I have always assumed red sauce was safe -- the Latinos I grew up with never used anything much more than chili, garlic, water, and some oil in their red sauces. I was looking for a copy cat recipe for then El Torito red sauce and found one that had beef broth in it. :puke: That freaked me out completely, so I went to their website and submitted a question about their sauce. Here is their answer:

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Thank you for writing with your question.

Our enchilada sauce is prepared with chicken base. Our rice is prepared with chicken base as well. Our refried beans are prepared with vegetable oil.

We do have vegetable fajitas on our menu. In addition we offer non-fat vegetarian frijoles de la jolla (beans) as a substitution. You can also order any entree with any of the following vegetarian sauces as substitutes.

Roasted Tomatillo Sauce
Chile De Arbol Adobo Sauce
Relleno Sauce

I hope this was helpful.


Osbelia O’Leary
El Torito Restaurants
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I spent all day yesterday thinking about that last double enchilada I had there the night before. :puke:

I hate when that happens.

[Ignis]

1. Gah! Thanks for the info.

That'll really bum out a few vegetarians I know who enjoy eating there. :(

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. I am finding out they sneak animal dreck in --

a lot of places they didn't use to. Rice, mashed potatoes, veggies made with broth. :puke: It is like a food minefield. At Pasta Pomodoro's my vegetarian sister was going to get the carrot soup and I just happened to ask what it was made with and, yup, it was made with chicken stock. :(

Next time I go to El Torito I will be trying out the other sauces and find the one that I like best.

[Ignis]

3. Rice is the big problem for me at Mexican restaurants.

Most places have wised up and offer a vegetarian bean option, but you need to interrogate the server/cooks--often in Spanish--to find out if the rice has any "caldo de pollo" or other non-veggie surprises in it.

This makes me grumpy, as a rice & bean burrito without rice is very lame. :(

[Raine]

4. UGH, THANKS for that info

I never thought about the sauce and I always get that entree. :puke:

[CrispyQ]

5. Bummer.

We have a local restaurant that serves tofu tacos. Damn! The tofu is soooooo good! They have veggie beans, as well, but I'm not sure about the rice. So I make a nice meal of 3 tacos & a side of beans & the table salsa. They make a decent veggie green chile, but mine is so much better I just go with the tacos.

It's amazing how many wait staff think that a cream of veggie soup is vegetarian, but when you inquire, it's made with a chicken broth. :eyes: I hate eating out. There are so many hidden animal ingredients that the wait staff doesn't even think about.