You can just boil the butternut squash in the stock and it can come out a little sweet from that. But if you cube it up and toss with a little oil and roast it until it starts to brown on the bottom you bump up the umami. Then toss it in a pit with just enough stock to not quite cover it. Blend it up with an emersion blender or regular blender if you don’t have one. That when you start all the flavor layering. Cream, pepper sauce, black pepper, and more nutmeg than seems reasonable. It’s rich and complex. And cheap.

Don’t have sausage? Try some freshly made croutons. Got some thyme laying around? Add it. Maybe a pinch of ground rosemary. Maybe bacon bits. It’s very flexible once you have that base set. I happened to find raw pumpkin seeds at a decent price today so I added them to the squash and onion when I roasted them. I also added the seeds from inside the squash. That’s free protein that most people throw away because they don’t want to separate it from the stringy stuff.