In order to improve the drying quality of chili and reduce energy consumption, we use heat pump-microwave drying chili. First of all, the effects of different heat pump temperature, microwave power and conversion point moisture content on the moisture content and color difference of pepper were discussed. The color difference and water content were taken as the primary indexes of investigation, and the appropriate range of three factors was selected. On this basis, the above three factors were selected as the experimental factor to get on Response surface method Box-Behnken center combination experimental design. Capsanthin, capsaicin, dihydro capsaicin, color difference, unit energy consumption and unit time-consuming were separately measured. The maximum of each index was normalized by the reference value, and different weight coefficients were given for the multi-index comprehensive score, and then optimized by response surface methodology. The optimal process parameters of chili heat pump-microwave combined drying were as follows: heat pump temperature was 50.38 ℃, conversion point moisture content was 50.39%, microwave power was 286.14 W and the highest comprehensive score was 0.488 604. The relative error between the verification result and the test result was less than 4%, which proved that the optimization result was reliable.