The NYT Strands answer for Saturday, July 18, 2026, is BOWLOFGRANOLA. Today’s puzzle is #867, and the theme is “A healthy breakfast.”
Three hints before the full answer, for solvers still working through the grid.
Hint 1: The theme is “A healthy breakfast” – think of a popular morning food served in a bowl with milk or yogurt, and the words that describe its taste, texture, and ingredients.
Hint 2: The spangram names a specific breakfast item. It is two words joined together that span the board.
Hint 3: Every strand word is an adjective or ingredient noun that could appear on the label or in a description of today’s spangram food.
Spangram: BOWLOFGRANOLA
Strand words: CRUNCHY, NUTTY, OATS, SALTED, SWEET, WHOLESOME
The spangram BOWLOFGRANOLA names the breakfast at the centre of the puzzle, and all six strand words connect to it directly. OATS is the base grain – the primary ingredient in virtually every granola recipe. CRUNCHY describes the texture produced when rolled oats are baked with oil and sweetener until they cluster and crisp. NUTTY covers both the flavour notes that almonds, pecans, or walnuts contribute and the taste of toasted oats themselves. SWEET is the default flavour register for most commercial granola, driven by honey, maple syrup, or brown sugar. SALTED granola – often paired with dark chocolate or sea salt flakes – has become a popular counterpoint to the sweeter classic varieties. WHOLESOME carries a dual meaning: the literal nutritional sense (whole grains, fibre, protein from nuts) and the marketing one, since “wholesome” is among the most common words on granola packaging and the wider healthy-breakfast category.
The puzzle is well-constructed around a single concrete object. Unlike Strands themes that rely on metaphor or wordplay, “A healthy breakfast” describes BOWLOFGRANOLA plainly, which means solvers who identify OATS early have a direct line to the spangram. The harder finds are SALTED and NUTTY – SALTED because it reads as an action past participle before it resolves as a flavour descriptor, and NUTTY because it sits close to SWEET and CRUNCHY in the grid without an obvious spatial anchor.
The NYT Connections #1133 answers for July 18, 2026 are also live. The Wordle #1855 answer for July 18 is BOOTH. Strands resets at midnight ET.
