The improper use of food additives poses a threat to food safety and human health, making it essential to establish sensitive and rapid detection methods for food additives. Molecular imprinting technology, which enables the specific and selective recognition of template molecules in real samples, has been widely applied in the fabrication of molecularly imprinted polymers. The emergence of this technology provides a new perspective for the detection of food additives. This paper outlines novel preparation methods and materials for molecularly imprinted polymers, reviews research progress over the past five years on their application in food additive sample pretreatment and the construction of detection sensors, and prospects future developments in molecularly imprinted polymer preparation, detection scope, and the development of portable detection sensors.