The development and innovation of veterinary drug residue analysis and detection technology is an important research content of animal-derived food safety monitoring. As an important part of systems biology, metabolomics research and its detection technology also play an indispensable role in the field of animal-derived food safety. Based on the current research results of metabolomics technology in the field of veterinary drug residue detection, the conceptual, principles and classification of metabolomics are illustrated. Taking the detection of two types of veterinary drug residues, such as clenbuterol and steroids, the current application status of the commonly used detection techniques of metabolomics contains liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) or gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS) on the detection of animal's blood and urine samples. The problems of untargeted metabolomics and targeted metabolomics with low precision and throughput are analyzed. The limitations of metabolomics technology over-reliance on large instrumentation and professional databases have also been offered. Further, metabolomics technology is proposed, which should be based on sample characteristics and detection purposes in the application of veterinary drug residue detection. The multi-technology platform (liquid chromatography electrospray time-of-flight mass spectrometry, ultra high performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry), multi-analysis platform (principal component analysis, partial least squares discrimination analysis) and multi-omics (genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics) technology are used together to improve the applicability and applicational range of metabolomics technology in the field of veterinary drug residue detection. It provides new research directions for veterinary drug residue analysis and testing technology.