Proteins are essential components of organisms and they participate in every process within cells. The key characteristic of proteins that allows their diverse functions is their ability to bind other molecules specifically and tightly. With the development of proteomics, exploring high-efficiency detection methods for large-scale proteins is increasingly important. In recent years, rapid development of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based biosensors leads to the SERS realm of applications from chemical analysis to nanostructure characterization and biomedical applications. For proteins, early studies focused on investigating SERS spectra of individual proteins, and the successful design of nanoparticle probes has promoted great progress of SERS-based immunoassays. In this review we outline the development of SERS-based methods for proteins with particular focus on our proposed protein-mediated SERS-active substrates and their applications in label-free and Raman dye-labeled protein detection. graphic removed