Microwave assisted extraction of essential oil from Perilla seeds, based on the yield index of Perilla seed oil, Box-Behnken design was applied to evaluate the effects of three independent variables. The correlation analysis of mathematical-regression models indicated that quadratic polynomial model could be employed to optimize the microwave assisted extraction of Perilla seed oil. The optimum extraction parameters were as follows: Ethanol as the extraction solvent (70 %), microwave pre-invasion treatment time of 45 min, microwave time of 8 min, microwave power of 523 W, and liquid-solid ratio of 9:1. Under these conditions, the Perilla seed actual essential oil yield was 38.02%, which well matches with the predicted value of 38.12 %, which was better than the traditional Soxhlet extraction. The GC-MS shows that, this kind of Perilla seed essential oil has higher unsaturated fatty acid content,and the content of alpha linolenic acid was 64.41%.