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Protection of frying oil from deterioration by adding plant phenolic extracts to guarantee the quality of fried foods becomes the primary approach to promote the sustainable development of deep frying. Therefore, sources, antioxidant effects, and mechanisms of plant phenolic extracts recently applied in the quality protection of frying oil as well as challenges for the actual use of these extracts are comprehensively reviewed in this study. Spices, herbs, berries, tea leaves, and fruit and vegetable wastes are common sources for preparing phenolic extracts showing comparative antioxidant capacity referring to the synthetic antioxidants. The general effect of using these natural antioxidants is the improvement of thermal stability to extend the shelf life of frying oil and thus the modification of edible quality of fried foods. Specifically, the increases in common quality attributes and amount of hazardous products and the oxidative reduction of unsaturated triacylglycerols without negatively influencing the sensory quality are inhibited when suitable plant extracts are applied. The incorporation of plant phenolic extracts other than synthetic counterparts in frying oil has been demonstrated as a potential method to improve the frying performance of oils. However, challenges for the scale application of plant phenolic extracts, such as the purity, thermal stability, and antioxidant timing, are still needed to be further investigated.