Objective  To investigate the effect of experiential diet management on dietary compliance and nutritional status of peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients.  Methods  The subjects were PD patients from Department of Nephrology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.  They were randomly assigned to the intervention group (experiential diet management group) and the control group (routine diet management group) by using the random number table method.  Results  A total of 97 patients were enrolled in the study, including 48 in the intervention group and 49 in the control group. Dietary knowledge, dietary compliance attitude, dietary compliance behavior and incidence of malnutrition were compared between the two groups before intervention, at discharge from the hospital, 3 months after discharge, and 6 months after discharge, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05).  Conclusion  Experiential diet management allows the patients to simulate and experience various scenarios of diet management and to increase the sense of participation, thereby improving patients' knowledge level, diet compliance, diet structure, and nutritional status.