Soybean meal has been widely used as a good protein resource in monogastric animal feed for its characteristics of high protein content and balanced nutrients. However, the application of soybean meal was limited since it contained some anti-nutritional factors, such as soybean antigen proteins (sensitizing factor), oligosaccharide, phytic acid and goitrogen etc. The progress and application effect of the methods that can be used to detect the anti-nutritional factors in soybean meal were introduced. The shortages were summarized and the speculations regarding future directions of these methods were analyzed.