The quail egg is a large class of egg products in China, and is often processed into leisure-time foods. Quail egg products are highly nutritious, and usually require high-pressure sterilization to sterilize and preserve their quality, but this can have a significant influence on taste. The total bacterial count, volatile basic nitrogen, pH value, and volatile compound content of pickled quail eggs irradiated with different irradiation dosages and treated with thermal sterilization were evaluated, and the appropriate irradiation dose for preserving pickled quail eggs as leisure-time food was studied. The results showed that after storage, the total bacterial count of the products irradiated with more than 10 kGy were close to bacterial counts of high-pressure-sterilized products, and no significant differences were seen in volatile basic nitrogen content. The pH values of the products treated with an irradiation intensity of 4 kGy and above were close to the pH value of the control. Volatile component analysis showed 130 types of compounds, among of which there were 18 aldehydes, 30 alcohols, 7 esters, 7 ketones, 9 acids, 10 alkenes, 24 alkanes, and 25 other compounds. There were 14 common volatile components in the products sterilized by the three methods. The content of acids and alcohols in the group processed with high pressure thermal sterilization were significantly higher than the levels in the groups preserved by irradiation. Furthermore, due to the high moisture content in the product, different treatments resulted in significant differences in volatile components. Irradiation with a dose of 10 kGy is feasible for preserving quail egg products, but further study is required.