Abstract: As one of new optical detection methods, near infrared spectroscopy ( NIRS) technique has been widely used in food industry and proved to be one of the most efficient and advanced tools for estimation of quality attributes in meat and meat products in recent years.The paper reviewed the recent development of research of near infrared spectroscopy in meat industry, including the potential to predict chemical composition, sensory attributes, physical properties and to categorize meat into quality classes.Lastly, this review tried to come up with some perspectives on meat quality detection with NIRS. Standardizing sample preparation and improving the accuracy reference methods were considered useful to improve precision of NIRS.