The work aims to summarize the latest research achievements in antimicrobial active packaging based on plant essential oils (EOs), and provide reference for promoting further researches and applications of active packaging for food preservation. Typical EOs having inhibitory activity on food-borne microbial pathogens and their main chemical components were introduced. In particular, the possible antimicrobial mechanism of EOs against food-borne microbial pathogens was summarized from the structure and function of cell membrane, the replication of hereditary material, the enzymatic activity and metabolic functionalities. The main preparation process of active packaging materials based on EOs were analyzed and summarized. The innovative food packaging applications based on EOs were introduced. Finally, a series of solutions were proposed for the current problems existing in the active packaging based on EOs. EOs have gradually emerged as being the most promising ecological alternatives to synthetic bactericides and fungicides due to their strong antimicrobial activities, and active packaging based on EOs will show an optimistic application prospect in food preservation with the volatile, odorous, food safety risk and other problems of EOs being continuously solved in the packaging process.