Due to increased concerns about food safety, rapid, specific and highly sensitive monitoring of pathogen bacteria in food samples is of great importance to ensure public health. Although traditional detection methods are available, they are time consuming, labor intensive, unsuitable for on-site detection, and need highly trained personnel. To overcome these limitations, many efforts have been devoted to develop a new class of bioassays, aptamer-based assays, which use nucleic acid as bio-recognition elements. Aptamer-based assays and aptasensors, as emerging analytical methods, have opened new horizons for simple, specific and sensitive detection of microorganisms including pathogen bacteria. This review therefore will focus on new developed aptamer-based assays and aptasensors for pathogenic bacteria in food samples. We will also highlight advantages and drawbacks of various types of assays developed for pathogen bacteria detection. •Detection of pathogenic bacteria in food samples is of great impotence to ensure public health.•Traditional detection methods are time consuming and labor intensive.•Development of highly sensitive analytical procedures is required.•Recently, aptamer-based assays have gained a considerable attention.•We have evaluated advantages and limitations of different strategies for the fabrication of aptamer-based assays.