Abstract: With the improvement of people's living standards and health awareness, the safety of animal-derived food has attracted worldwide attention. Chemical contamination (melamine, veterinary drug residues, food additive residues, etc.) and pathogenic microorganisms are the primary causes of food safety issues in animal-derived food products, potentially threatening human health and socioeconomic development. Therefore, it is essential to establish rapid detection methods for animal-derived food safety. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has the advantages of rapid detection, good selectivity, and high sensitivity. It has shown great application potential in food safety, which has become one of the research hotspots. This paper reviews the application of SERS in the safety of animal-derived food detection and comprehensively introduces the use of SERS to detect melamine, foodborne pathogens, pesticide and veterinary drug residues, and food additives. Furthermore, it prospects the application of SERS technology in rapid residue detection, which would be believed to provide valuable insights into the field of SERS-based food safety evaluation.