Panera Bread Employee Fired Over Tik Tok Vid of Mac and Cheese

Panera Bread got burned by one of its own, according to a former employee who says she got canned for posting a Tik Tok of the restaurant's mac and cheese ... in all its frozen glory.

The video was posted last week and showed someone place a plastic pouch of frozen (😢) mac and cheese in boiling water, remove it and then pour it into a bowl to be served.

Some Panera customers teed off on the clip ... leaving pissed off comments about the chain not dishing freshly cooked fare. Others were more realistic and chalked it up to being standard ops for a fast-food chain.

The now ex-staffer said, "Lol i lost my job this" -- but Panera's refusing to comment about that. It DID have lots to say in defense of the chilling mac secret ... telling the Washington Post, it's "made offsite with our proprietary recipe developed by our chefs."

It says the freezing is necessary for delivery and to avoid using preservatives that "do not meet our clean standards."

As for the employee ... looks like she'll have to get dough elsewhere.