Memory and cognitive impairment are the principal clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Cholinergic deficiency, amyloid-beta (Aβ) toxicity, tau protein hyperphosphorylation, synaptic dysfunction, oxidative stress, and neuroinflammation can all exacerbate the development of AD. With the increased number of AD patients and the frequency of AD complications, people are more inclined to select hydrolyzed proteins or bioactive peptides derived from natural foods as intervention agents to combat this type of neurological disease. Currently, our lack of understanding of the complex pathological mechanisms of the disease has led to a high failure rate in the generation of anti-AD food-derived peptides. Accordingly, this review describes the specific regulatory mechanisms of food-derived bioactive peptides on AD-related therapeutic targets over the past decade and highlights the pathogenesis of AD, potential food sources of anti-AD bioactive peptides, methods for evaluating memory efficacy, and regulatory pathways of food-derived bioactive peptides against AD disease.