Great Lent Meal Plan (Free Printable Plan With Shopping Lists!)

Lenten meals can be hard to plan, especially for Eastern Catholics that fast from so many things during the season! While Roman Catholics abstain from meat (not fish) on Fridays during Lent, Eastern Catholics have a lot more items they fast from, and for all the days of Lent, not just Fridays. You can read 6 Ways Byzantine Lent is different from Roman Catholic Lent here. Now let’s take a look at this Great Lent Meal Plan that is free to print, fast compliant for Byzantine Catholics, and even includes your shopping list for each week.

Roman Catholics– The Eastern Rite fasting for Lent is different, so you may want to check out my child-friendly meatless meal ideas here. This will be perfect for your Fridays of abstaining! You can also check out our intro to Eastern Catholics here. 

A Little Bit About Eastern Catholic Fasting

The full, traditional great fast is abstaining from the following things every day for the length of Great Lent: 

• Meat
• Fish
• Eggs
• Dairy
• Wine
• Olive Oil

Fasting these ingredients does make this fast similar to a vegan diet, although it’s not exactly vegan. 

Here is something else Carrie had to say about fasting during Great Lent:

Fasting is a very private spiritual matter for which guidance from a spiritual father is always recommended, however. Children are not expected to fast in the same way that adults are, and if someone can’t keep the full traditional fast for whatever reasons (because there are countless medical, psychological, or spiritual reasons why that might be the case!), that’s not a problem, and spiritual fathers are usually well aware of a person’s needs in that regard. We keep the maxim to “keep your eye on your own plate,” which helps us focus on humility and reliance on God, in addition to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving!

Intro To This Great Lent Meal Plan

Carrie Chuff, a contributing writer here, spent years developing this user friendly meal plan for her family, and she wanted to share it with all of you! 

Here is Carrie’s intro video about this Lenten meal plan that she created.

@carriechuff Sharing my Great Lent meal plan! #catholic #catholicmom #easterncatholic #greatfast #greatlent ♬ original sound – Carrie

What’s Included In This Lenten Meal Plan

This free printable pack has a 3 week meal plan that you can rotate through with your family until the end of Great Lent! Not only are the meals charted out, but it comes with so many user friendly things to help you actually implement this meal plan in your own home. Here’s what’s included:

• A chart showing 3 weeks worth of fast compliant dinners at a glance
• Notes with suggestions for sides and substitutions
• Suggestions for breakfast, lunch, and kid friendly snack ideas
• Links with recipes that are organized by the day for each of the 3 weeks
• 3 separate grocery lists, organized by the week’s worth of recipes 

Download Your Free Great Lent Meal Plan Here!

This Great Lent Meal Plan pack is now available to download completely for free! To grab your copy now, just click the blue button below. 

NOTE- This file is being hosted here with written permission from Carrie Chuff. It is not to be republished or redistributed in any way. It is for personal use only. By downloading this file, you are agreeing to these terms. 

More Resources:

You can find all of the Catholic Icing resources about Lent here

You can find more resources for Byzantine moms here

About Carrie:

Carrie Chuff is a wife and homeschooling mother of six children. As a young woman, she spent five years of formation in a Roman Catholic convent of active/contemplative religious Sisters whose apostolate included retreats and catechesis. After realizing God had other plans, she left and later met and married her husband, Derek. Eventually, they both rediscovered their Eastern Catholic heritage and embraced it fully as members of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, a Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Church which is in full Communion with Rome. She resides with her family in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

You can find Carrie’s charming videos about her time in the convent and more on her TikTok page and you can follow her Instagram here.