Clove leaf oil was incorporated into foxtail millet starch (FMS) for developing an active packaging material with antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. The FMS films that contained clove leaf oil exhibited changes in tensile strength (6.78–4.00 MPa) and elongation at break (66.26–99.48%) with the addition of increasing concentrations of the essential oil, and possessed ultraviolet‐light barrier properties. Moreover, the FMS films that contained clove leaf oil inhibited the growth of Listeria monocytogenes. The addition of clove leaf oil resulted in excellent ABTS and DPPH radical‐scavenging activity of the films. The FMS film packaging that contained 1% clove leaf oil led to a decrease in the population of Listeria monocytogenes in queso blanco cheese by 1.19 log CFU g−1 after storage for 24 days, compared with that in the control samples. In addition, the concentration of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances decreased by 54%. Thus, these results suggest that the FMS films that contain clove leaf oil can be used as a new packaging material for enhancing the shelf life of queso blanco cheese.