To improve the high performance liquid chromatography method for quantitation of salidroside in health food.Methods The solvent and chromatography condition were optimized according to the determination of standard and extracted samples. Results Salidroside content exhibited a linear relation within 1.305-130.5 μg/ml using 50% methanol as solvent. The regression equation was y=7.377395×10-5x+0.1873961 (r=0.999 9) and the detection limit was 0.015 mg/g. Furthermore, the average recoveries were 92.1%-98.4%, and the RSD was 1.98%-3.26%. Conclusion This method was simple, accurate and reliable for determination of salidroside in health food.