The work aims to ensure the quality of instant crayfish, prolong its shelf life and provide theoretical reference for the development of instant crayfish preservation and sterilization technology. The current industry status, existing issues and development trends of instant crayfish preservation technology were reviewed. Starting from the mechanism of spoilage, the mechanism and key technological points of sterilization and preservation for prolonging shelf life were analyzed and their advantages and disadvantages were expounded. Then, the domestic research progress was discussed emphatically. Modern sterilization technology could greatly reduce the loss of food quality, but thermal sterilization technology with its safety and controllability in the future food sterilization industry was still difficult to be replaced. Existing preservation and sterilization technology could prolong the shelf life of instant crayfish, but there were still some shortcomings. Exploring the synergistic effect of different fence factors on instant crayfish preservation and constructing the preservation and mass transfer models of instant crayfish in the process of sterilization and preservation from the preservation mechanism are both important solutions to optimize the sterilization and preservation technology of instant crayfish in the future.