Abstract Turbulent combustion is a complex phenomenon combining the random nature of turbulence with the nonlinearity of chemistry. As a major process for energy production, in particular in propulsion systems, turbulent combustion must be perfectly controlled to ensure maximum efficiency with minimum environmental impact in terms of both fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. Today, the design and development of new concepts cannot be efficiently performed with experiment only and numerical simulation is required. An important step has been made in the last decades with the help of high-performance computing, which has allowed to go beyond the limited description of turbulence by the mean, as is done in the Reynolds-averaged approach. Thanks to large eddy simulation (LES), numerical simulation has recently emerged as a predictive tool, complementary to experiment and essential to understand the subtle interactions between fluid mechanics, thermochemistry, and heat transfer. In this chapter the main elements and current research trends of turbulent combustion modeling in the context of LES are described. First a brief introductory overview of technical challenges faced by engine manufacturers is given in the fields of automotive, aeronautical, and spatial propulsion. Combustion basics including thermochemistry and laminar flames are then presented to introduce the various concepts of turbulent combustion modeling. To illustrate the capacities of LES, recent examples of simulations are presented for various propulsion systems, in steady or transient operation phases where LES is undoubtedly the best adapted approach. Finally, recent first steps toward multiphysics computations, including two-phase flows and heat transfer, are reported.