Objective To establish a method for determining the volatile components of lubricating oil mixed in edible oil by headspace-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Methods The 1.0 g oil sample was directly taken into a 10 mL headspace bottle, then capped and sealed. Headspace-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis was carried out at 90 ℃ equilibration for 20 min. Qualitative analysis was performed on 5 kinds of compounds: 4-methyl-2-pentanol, isooctanol, nonane, undecane and dodecane, while quantitative analysis was performed on isooctanol, nonane, undecane, and dodecane. Results The 4 kinds of quantitative compounds showed good linear relationships within the range of 0.5-8.0 mg/kg, and the correlation coefficients were all above 0.9980. Soybean oil was used as the sample for the spike recovery experiment. The recoveries of nonane, isooctanol, undecane, dodecane were 91.5%-98.2%, 81.9%-92.7%, 92.8%-94.6%, 89.3%-93.7% respectively and the relative standard deviations were all less than 10%. In the 5 kinds of edible oils: Soybean oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, corn oil and sunflower seed oil, the limits of detection of nonane, isooctanol, undecane, dodecane were 0.006-0.013 mg/kg, 0.016-0.045 mg/kg, 0.011-0.020 mg/kg, 0.020-0.036 mg/kg respectively. Conclusion This method has the advantages of simple operation and rapid detection, and does not have high requirements for the instrument, which can be carried out in general laboratories, and is suitable for the screening of trace lubricating oil contamination in edible oil.