Sauce for "creamed" vegetables

[JAZ]

When I was growing up, my mother made creamed peas and creamed onions, both of which had a roux-based sauce: white sauce for the peas and a similar sauce for the onions but made with half-and-half and chicken stock. It's what I always thought a cream sauce for vegetables was, until I encountered recipes for creamed spinach that used a) reduced heavy cream; b) sour cream;and c) cream cheese.

Since then, I've been paying more attention to recipes. White sauce (don't call it bechamel) comes up often, but so does plain heavy cream -- usually reduced. In my limited experience, both work well enough -- cream is more delicate, but white sauce is more stable. I've only tried a cream cheese sauce once, and found it cloying and heavy. It seems to me that sour cream would separate, but maybe I'm missing something.

What do you use? Are there choices I don't know about? Better choices for one vegetable or another? (I can't imagine using anything but my mother's recipe for creamed onions, for instance, but I'm not convinced a roux-based sauce is best for everything.)

[SobaAddict70]

Try using crème fraiche for creamed spinach (use as you would heavy cream).