Uh-Oh. The Macaroni and Cheese Is Out Of The Bag At Panera

The Big “Secret” Is Revealed

The Internet exploded the other day when a now former Panera Bread employee apparently “revealed” the anything-but-secret secret about how the fast casual chain prepares and serves its signature macaroni and cheese.

In a brief clip filmed behind the counter and later uploaded to Tik Tok, the employee is seen dipping a plastic bag full of frozen macaroni and cheese into a pot of hot water and then pulling it out and emptying the steaming contents into a bowl for service.

I don't know, but I'm guessing the reason behind this attempted “outing” was to cause some kind of embarrassment to Panera, an outfit that prides itself on its fresh, all-natural fare. It's like “lookee-lookee! Their fresh macaroni and cheese is frozen!!”

Excuse me while I stifle a yawn.

If this myth-busting Snopes wannabe is expecting me to pick up my picket sign and go protest in front of my local store, she's going to be sadly disappointed. See, with four generations of family and numerous friends in the food service business, I know a little something about how it works and this is far from a secret or a surprise.

What? Did you really think there was a Michelin-starred chef in a white jacket and a toque just standing back in the local Panera kitchen waiting to make a single serving of your favorite side dish fresh to order? That he was cooking each individual portion of pasta one at a time and making the creamy cheese sauce from scratch so he or she could pour it over your dish when it was ready to hit the window? Reality check time. That ain't the way it works at Panera, Olive Garden, Red Lobster or just about any other high-volume chain restaurant you can think of.

And it ain't the way it works in my kitchen either. I've got freezers jam packed with goodies that I did, indeed, craft from high-quality, super-fresh ingredients that I then portioned out, vacuum-sealed, and stuck in the freezer for later use. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's common industry practice. A chef, Michelin-starred or not, working in a corporate kitchen somewhere, developed the recipe. The high-quality, super-fresh ingredients were assembled and prepared according to the chef's standards and under his or her supervision. Then the results were portioned and quickly frozen in order to maintain that fresh quality without having to add a ton of preservatives. I do it commercially for my clients, I do it at home for my family; it's no big deal. C'mon! Have you never made too much of something and wound up freezing part of it and eating it later? Was there anything wrong with it when you did? Of course not.

Trust me, I've had cooks in my restaurants who just loved to “play” with my recipes. Add a little of this, leave out a little of that. You know, “personalize” it. Can you imagine what would happen if every barely above minimum wage cook in every Panera Bread restaurant across the country were allowed to make the macaroni and cheese “their way” from scratch? Even if they “followed the recipe,” it wouldn't taste the same from one location to the next and you wouldn't be happy, now would you?

I remember eating at a chain place years ago where the cooks apparently had a little leeway in the preparation of certain things. As a result, I got a Fettuccine Alfredo that had enough nutmeg in the sauce as to render it not only unrecognizable but also inedible. And you know what? I've never been back to any location of that chain from that day to this.

Creativity is fine for fine dining, but when it comes to chain places, consistency is key. Customers expect the macaroni and cheese at the Panera in Kookamunga to taste the same as the stuff they had in the store down the street. If the cook in Kookamunga likes, let's say nutmeg, and is given free rein to prepare the dish “his way,” they're going to have a very dissatisfied customer. So yeah, they make the stuff in big batches and freeze it. So what?

As a Panera spokesperson told CNN, “Mac and cheese is made off-site with our proprietary recipe developed by our chefs and using our sourced ingredients that meet our standards for our clean menu offerings,” adding that the meals are shipped frozen so the company can leave out certain preservatives that don’t meet the chain’s clean standards.

Technically, what they're doing at Panera is a form of the very trendy and popular “sous vide” method of cooking. It's actually the best way for a restaurant – or anybody, for that matter – to reheat macaroni and cheese from a frozen or refrigerated state. Tossing it in a pan on the stove or letting “Chef Mic” (industry speak for a microwave) do it usually turns out badly. Heating the product in a gentle, temperature-controlled water bath brings it up to serving temperature gradually while ensuring that the sauce stays emulsified with no breaking or scorching. Again, consistent quality counts.

By the way, have you ever wondered how some high-end steak places can produce such consistently killer steaks in such short periods of time? Pssst.......sous vide. Everybody does it.

I guess somewhere just south of a hundred-thousand people – probably more by now – thought the little clip was newsworthy. And apparently Panera thought that the budding videographer's talents were best applied elsewhere. Seems the pasta wasn't the only thing in hot water around there. So now she's on Tik Tok crying salty tears about having been canned, essentially for trying to make her employer look bad. Boo-hoo! Sorry, you're lucky they didn't sue you.

You know, I'm a sucker for good macaroni and cheese and I've never tried Panera's. I can vouch for their soups and sandwiches but maybe it's time I branch out a bit. Hmmmm.....it is lunchtime and there is a Panera Bread store not far from here. Yeah, I think I'll do that. After all, I ain't afraid of no hot water. Care to join me?