With the continuous change of people's diet structure, low-fat cheese is gradually attracting the attention of consumers. However, low-fat cheese has the defects of hard texture, difficult to chew, and flavor inferior compared to full-fat cheese. Fat substitutes can replace fat to produce a smooth mouth feel, improve the texture and structure defects of low-fat cheese, so as to improve the quality of low-fat cheese. In order to further understand the role and research progress of fat substitutes in cheese, this review comprehensively discussed the application and improvement of different fat substitutes in low-fat cheese in terms of yield, color, texture, flavor and functional properties. Furthermore, it put forward the possible future development direction of low-fat cheese and provided a reference for promoting the industrial production of low-fat cheese in China.