Many herbs are used in food for enhancing flavor and taste. In this study, the antibacterial activity against foodborne pathogens of four essential oils commonly used for food namely clove, lemon grass, makhwuang and makhwean were investigated. The essential oils showed broad spectrum of inhibition against Gram-positive and Gram-negative foodborne pathogens including Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella typhi, Shigella sonnei, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Vibrio cholerae. The investigation of the in vitro susceptibility of the oils against V. cholerae using the agar disc diffusion assay revealed that lemon grass oil exhibit the outstanding inhibition zone (51 mm) and clove oil (27 mm) showed similar inhibition zone as tetracycline (28 mm). All the essential oils had ability to inhibit tetracycline resistant S. typhi DMST 22842. Both minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of clove and lemon grass oils against V. cholerae and were 0.03 ug/ml. The two essential oils were considered as bactericidal. It is suggested that the essential oils could be potential use to control foodborne pathogens. However, further evaluation performed with pure compounds is required for the precise conclusion of bioactive components contributing to the antibacterial activity of the essential oils.