Abstract: Pesticides play an important role in improving the yield and quality of agricultural products, but the irregular use of pesticides lead to excessive pesticide residues, which poses potential risks to people, livestock and the environment. For rapid monitoring of pesticide residues, rapid detection methods such as enzyme inhibition, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, colloidal gold immune chromatography, and biosensor have been widely used. Among them, optical sensors have attracted much attention for their high sensitivity and selectivity in the precise recognition and detection of pesticide molecules. This paper mainly introduces the precise recognition of pesticides by antibodies, aptamers, molecularly imprinted polymers, and metal-organic frameworks. The application of optical sensor based pesticide molecule identification technology in pesticide residue detection were reviewed from five aspects: colorimetry, fluorescence, chemiluminescence, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and surface plasmon resonance. The advantages, disadvantages, and development trend of the optical sensor based precise recognition technology for pesticide molecules was also summarized and prospected. This article provides a reference for the development of rapid detection technology for precise identification of pesticide residues.