Background In recent years, various oilseeds have been increasingly used for food purposes. Whole seeds, oils, meal and cake by-products are valuable sources of nutritional and bioactive components. Their properties are widely promoted by nutritionists and food producers, and therefore the interest of consumers in new pro-health ingredients is growing rapidly around the world. Nowadays, new trends are being evaluated by food scientist and industry to partially replace animal proteins with proteins of vegetable origin, contributing not only to improvement of the pro-health values of meat products, but also corresponding to the need of many scientists, activists and government agencies to reduce meat production for ethical reasons and care for the environment. Scope and approach This review summarizes the nutritional and pro-health properties of eleven selected oilseeds, namely, chia, coconut, evening primrose, hemp, flax, milk thistle, nigella, pumpkin, rapeseed, sesame and sunflower, with emphasis on their application to improve food products characteristics, oilseed protein composition and proteins and peptides biological activity, as well as potential allergenicity. Key findings and conclusions The presence of biologically active proteins and peptides having antioxidant, antihypertensive or neuroprotective properties, as well as a relatively well-balanced profile of exogenous amino acids with sulphur-containing amino acids, makes oilseed proteins a valuable functional component or an alternative source of protein, especially for bakery and meat industries. The low allergenicity of pumpkin and hemp seeds and potential non-allergenicity of chia, evening primrose, milk thistle, and nigella also weighs in favour of their application as functional ingredients in newly-formulated foods.