With the increasing demand for food safety, veterinary drug residues in animal-derived foods have become the focus of global attention. In the field of food safety ,the development and innovation of veterinary drug residues analysis and detection technology has become a research hotspot. Metabonomics, as an important part of systems biology, could quantify and characterize all metabolic components in specific biological samples and determine the metabolites which were neglected in the past. Metabonomics being widely applied in science, such as food safety,veterinary drug residue detection, drug development, disease diagnosis and so on, have accelerated the development of related subjects and field. However, there are still scientific problems to be solved in its practical application. In this study, the application status and problems of metabonomics in the detection of target residues of lean meat powder and steroids which are two representative veterinary drugs. Based on the deficiencies of existing veterinary drug detection and the superiority of metabonomics, revealed the application prospects and vast development potential of metabonomics in the illegal use of veterinary drug monitoring.