NYT Mini Crossword Answers and Hints for Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026: Three Candy Mashups

The New York Times (NYT) Mini Crossword for Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, is a seven-by-seven grid with 16 clues by Joel Fagliano. On Halloween, three of the Across clues ask for half of one candy and half of another. Below is a hint for every clue, each one hidden until you open it, then the full answers in a marked spoiler section.

Hints for every clue

Across

• 1-Across (3 letters), Candy holder for a trick-or-treater

  the sack or pail a child holds open at each door.
• 4-Across (4 letters), Org. interested in Mars and the Milky Way

  the American space agency, written as a four-letter acronym.
• 5-Across (7 letters), Half Starburst, half Skittle?

  the first four letters of one candy name plus the last three of the other; it means to give someone a sudden fright.
• 8-Across (3 letters), Golfer’s goal

  the number of strokes a hole is rated at.
• 9-Across (3 letters), Iconic Australian animal, for short

  a clipped form of kangaroo.
• 10-Across (7 letters), Half Airhead, half candy corn?

  the first three letters come from Airhead; the last four are candy corn with one letter changed, and together they name a loud noisemaker.
• 12-Across (6 letters), Half Mounds, half Reese’s?

  the first three letters come from Mounds and the last three from Reese’s.
• 13-Across (3 letters), Female sheep

  an adult one, which sounds like the word “you”.

Down

• 1-Down (3 letters), Candy ___

  a slab of chocolate; it also names a place with stools.
• 2-Down (6 letters), Houston baseball team

  a plural nickname that ends in S.
• 3-Down (6 letters), Aplenty

  it follows a noun to mean “in great supply”.
• 4-Down (6 letters), Opposite of wide

  how a lane looks when two cars can barely pass.
• 5-Down (3 letters), Health resort

  a place for massages and facials.
• 6-Down (5 letters), “Je ___” (French “I love you”)

  the answer is the second word with its apostrophe removed, so it starts with T.
• 7-Down (4 letters), Many, many millennia

  very long spans of time, plural.
• 11-Down (3 letters), Shade of a color

  another word for a tint or tone, starting with H.

Solving tips

Start with the short fill-ins: 1-Down, 8-Across, 9-Across and 13-Across have three letters each. 1-Across and 1-Down share their first square, so one guess checks the other. Then take the three “Half …, half …?” clues, 5-Across, 10-Across and 12-Across, which each need letters from two candy names. Once 5-Across and 10-Across are in, each one supplies a letter to the long Down answers that cross it.

Keep a streak log on our printable weekly calendar or the October 2026 printable calendar.

More of Saturday’s puzzles: Wordle hints, Connections hints, Strands hints, Spelling Bee hints and Pips hints. Friday’s grid is in our Mini answers for Oct. 30.

Today’s NYT Mini answers (spoilers)

Stop here if you still want to solve it yourself. The answer to 4-Across is an abbreviation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Clue	Answer
1-Across	Bag
4-Across	Nasa
5-Across	Startle
8-Across	Par
9-Across	Roo
10-Across	Airhorn
12-Across	Mouses
13-Across	Ewe
1-Down	Bar
2-Down	Astros
3-Down	Galore
4-Down	Narrow
5-Down	Spa
6-Down	Taime
7-Down	Eons
11-Down	Hue

Half of 5-Across is the start of Starburst, and 6-Down completes “Je t’aime”. The answers come from the puzzle’s official data.

Yesterday's Mini Crossword answer

The Mini on Friday, Oct. 30, 2026: Across 1 Bat, 4 Town, 5 Tibet, 6 Orbs, 7 Key; Down 1 Bobby, 2 Awes, 3 Trinitrotoluene (TNT), 4 Tire, 5 Tok. Yesterday's hints and full solution.