The invention relates to a sparse detection frequency signal-based inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging method. A sparse detection frequency signal is transmitted, and after being received, radar echo is processed by using a compressed sensing theory to obtain a target image. The method is based on the compressed sensing theory, and only a small part of measured data on a distance frequency domain and a direction slowness-time domain is required; and therefore, compared with the conventional method, the method has the advantages that a small volume of measured data is required, and a memory space is small. The shortcomings of large measured data volume, high memory consumption, complex design, difficulty in implementation, high cost, long development cycle and the like of the conventional ISAR imaging method are overcome, a data rate can be greatly lowered, the design of a radar system can be simplified, a user can be promoted to design a novel simplified radar system, cost is reduced, and a design focus is shifted from expensive radar system hardware to a high-efficiency signal recovery algorithm. Simulation and measured data processing results show that the method is effective.