In recent years, with the emergence of resistance to traditional antibiotics and the growing interest in the development of natural antimicrobials, natural antimicrobial peptides have received extensive attention. Among them, plant-derived antimicrobial peptides have the characteristics of low drug resistance, wide antibacterial spectrum and low toxicity, and because of rich cysteine residues, they can form multiple disulfide bonds, so they have high chemical, thermal and enzymatic hydrolysis stability. In this paper, the classification of plant antimicrobial peptides and the methods of extracting and screening antimicrobial peptides from plant sources were reviewed. The potential applications of plant antimicrobial peptides in the field of food were emphasized, and the screening and future applications of these plant antimicrobial peptides in the field of food were prospected.