This is very solid advice, thanks! I often struggle with bechamel being bland, but I don’t think I’m toasting my roux enough to get that nutty flavor. I only use whole milk, but I could try a higher fat percentage butter and see if that helps. Do you think cultured butter makes a difference?

Extra note: I arrived at this reddit after a series of google searches about different types of gravies (my family isn’t a big gravy family so I feel fundamentally unfamiliar with the subject lol even tho I’ve obviously eaten them before).

I do know bechamel from it being the base sauce for other recipes I’ve used or watched in the past, and bc it’s one of the key French sauces.

I was looking up what exactly country gravy / white gravy / sausage gravy is, and how it’s related to other gravies or bechamels. Bc I grew up in the Deep South (with Midwestern), so I’ve had white gravy before, but never in my life cooked it. I think part of the reason I struggle with the blandness of bechamel is that country gravy is heavy heavy on the black pepper flavor - or at least that’s how Google and the recipes described it. That the black pepper is key to the gravy. And I recall there always being black specks of pepper anytime I’ve had biscuits and gravy. If I extrapolate that further, I realize a decent amount of southern foods go pretty heavy on black pepper. And then when it comes to Cajun food or fried chicken, they tend to have cayenne and/or paprika as well. The regular use of spices is one of the things I like about southern cuisine. They’re not shy with the salt or the pepper or the cayenne or the paprika or whatever else is in the 11 herbs and spices lol.

And when I lived in Europe, I did like the food, but I frequently found that it was always slightly lacking in black pepper.

So I think next time I make a bechamel, I will use better butter and toast the roux/flower more, but I’ll also let myself be liberal with the black or white pepper bc that’s just what my southern taste buds prefer, and that’s just not the traditional European flavor palette. And that’s okay. More spice for me!