Abstract: The consumption of animal foods is increasing nowadays, and the quality and safety of animal foods are highly valued by people. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) analytical technique has many advantages such as fast analytical speed, non-destruction, less necessary samples, multiple targets detected at the same time and it can monitor productive process at real time. The basic principles and pretreatments methods of NIR were presented in the article as well as the current progress of detection for animal foods, including quality evaluation and safety evaluation. Furthermore, development tendencies of detection for animal foods by NIR were also discussed. In conclusion, NIR analytical technique is suit to evaluate the quality and safety of animal foods.