The last few years have produced a revolution in the development of very sensitive, rapid, automated, molecular detection methods for a variety of various species of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) associated with food and dairy products. Nowadays many such strains of LAB are considered probiotics. The genome‐based methods are useful in identifying bacteria as a complementary or alternative tool to phenotypical methods. Over the years, identification methodologies using primers that target different sequences, such as the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA)‐encoding gene, the 16S‐23S rRNA intergenic spacer region, the 23S rRNA‐encoding, recA and ldhD genes; randomly amplified polymorphic DNA, restriction fragment length polymorphism, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, temperature gradient gel electrophoresis, amplification rDNA restriction analysis, restriction enzyme analysis, rRNA, pulse field gel electrophoresis and amplification fragment length polymorphism have played a significant role in probiotic bacteriology. Hence, the aim of this review is to provide an overview of some rapid and reliable polymerase chain reaction‐based molecular methods used for identifying and differentiating closely related species and strains of LAB associated with food and industry.