The work aims to design an encapsulation technique to improve the stability of lycopene to the maximum extent and delay the degradation rate of lycopene, thus expanding the application of lycopene. With lycopene crystal as the target core material, the optimal formula of lycopene microemulsion was obtained by pseudo-ternary phase diagram. The light and thermal stability of lycopene before and after encapsulation was investigated by the kinetic model of photodegradation and thermal degradation. The optimal formula of lycopene microemulsion was as follows:ethyl acetate as oil phase, Tween 60 as surfactant, anhydrous ethanol as cosurfactant, and ratio of surfactant to cosurfactant (Km) as 2∶1. Under this condition, the maximum microemulsion area was 53.05%, the content of lycopene in lycopene microemulsion was 352.90 μg/mL, the average particle size was 13.22 nm, the PDI was 0.054 8, and O/W microemulsion was obtained which had good centrifugal stability and storage stability. After illumination for different time and treatments at different temperature, the degradation of lycopene conformed to the first-order degradation kinetics and the degradation rate of lycopene in microemulsion was lower than that of lycopene crystal. The water solubility and stability of lycopene encapsulated in microemulsion is improved, and the encapsulation can effectively delay the light and thermal degradation rate of lycopene crystal, thus protecting the lycopene.