The use of plants for the treatment of illness is a common practice in Mexico. Almost 80% of the population utilizes medicinal plants at some point of their lives. The high demand of these plants generates the production of a diversity of herbal products in some of which different vegetal species are used as adulterants that can generate non-desired effects. This problem has led to the search of different methods for the identification of the vegetal species used in the herbal preparations. However, the path has not been obstacle free, some of these methods requires specific characteristics of the analyzing material, others shows low reproducibility and high costs. In this context, the present review covers diverse aspects of the identification methods in particular, the DNA barcoding. This a simple, low cost methodology used to identify medicinal plant materials in various presentations. The implementation of this methodology for the quality control of medicinal plants products in Mexico, would bring a number of benefits both, the herbal industry and the consumers, since the authentication of medicinal plants by DNA barcoding will guarantee high quality herbal medicinal products, without adulterants and without side effects, which would have a direct impact on users health, in addition to detonate the growth of the national herbalist sector.