Abstract: In order to investigate the flavor changes of beef sao zi industrial semi-finished products in different stir-frying stages. Sensory evaluation and instrumental analysis of tenderness were applied to optimize the processing parameters. For the overall odor perception, electronic nose (e-nose) can be used to distinguish the different odors of raw materials and processed samples. The volatile compounds were identified by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 144 volatile components were detected by HS-SPME-GC-MS, 52 of which were screened by t-test (P < 0.01).In the whole process, aldehydes were the major volatile flavor compounds in beef sao zi, which was consistent with the results of electronic nose in the stir-fry fat (SFF) stage. According to the results of partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), the odor formation in stir-fried beef sao zi was divided into four steps including raw, stir-fry to remove water(SFMRW), stir-fry fat (SFF) and mixed stir-fry (MSF). The results showed that the method could effectively distinguish the different processing stages of beef sao zi. There were 27 volatile compounds in raw and SFMRW, 103 volatile compounds in SFF, and 14 volatile compounds in MSF. Among these stages, SFF stage plays important role in the flavor change of beef sao zi. Even in PLS-DA evaluation of scatter plot, the raw and SFMRW were in the fourth quadrant, but their samples could be clearly separated. In the fourth quadrant, there were 27 kinds of volatile compounds, among which 5 kinds of volatile compounds were unique to raw, 5 kinds were specific for SFMRW, and 17 kinds were common for raw and SFMRW. There were 103 volatile compounds in the second and third quadrants of PLS-DA evaluation of scatter plot, of which 25 were specific to SFF, and the remaining 78 were common in three processing stages. There were 14 volatile compounds in the first quadrant of the PLS-DA evaluation of scatter plot, which were shared with e MSF, raw, SFMRW and SFF. The amount of volatile compounds in the MSF stage was less than that in the SFMRW stage. The results showed that volatile compounds in the MSF stage was less than that in the SFMRW stage, but the 14 volatile compounds can be used to distinguish MSF from other processing stages. MSF stage was the final stage of flavor formation of stir-frying beef sao zi. The content of volatile flavor compounds in this stage was lower than that in SFF stage. On the one hand, after the end of SFF, most of the butter in fat tissue has been already spilled, and the rate of autoxidation and thermal oxidation cracking of fat were weakened. On the other hand, adding 70% sfmrw sample to 30% SFF sample can reduce MSF temperature to 126 ℃.Compared with the heat treatment temperature (145 ℃) in the SFF stage, the reaction rates were weakened. At the same time, the addition of 70% of SFMRW also diluted the volatile compounds generating in the SFF stage.