The process of coal mining accompanied with the cumulative coal gob and other residues causes great damage to local ecological environment. It has become a research hotspot to restore the ecosystem of coal mine spoils in the damaged coal mining areas in recent years. At present, many studies focused on soil and vegetation restoration technology, supervision and management of coal mine spoils, and put forward corresponding restoration measures according to different objectives. These efforts have played an important role to guide the practical activity of the ecological restoration. However, most reviews did not deeply analyze the key problems in the process of the ecological recovery of coal mine spoils, and also did not set the restoration paths based on considering of the integrity and long-term stability of the ecosystem. Thus, by summarizing the previous research results, analyzing the key problems such as geological safety, soil environment, vegetation restoration, reproduction, and ecosystem stability in the process of restoring coal mine spoils, meanwhile, considering the successively logical relationship of restoration courses and ecosystem integrity, this study designed a set of major paths and methods of the ecological restoration of coal mine spoils including slope stability treatment and reshaping, land reclamation, species selection, artificial revegetation, soil seed bank formation, population reproduction and renewal, ecosystem health and stability evaluation, supplementary measures, etc. In conclusion, this study summarizes the basic ways of ecosystem restoration of coal mine spoils from six aspects. Successively, the order is (1) evaluation of geological safety risks of coal mine spoils by selecting the appropriate indicators such as mechanics indexes, meteorological indexes, physical indexes, etc, (2) land reclamation for reducing the geological safety risks and creating favorable soil environment of vegetation growth, (3) improvement of soil quality by topsoil replacement and other methods like fertilizing and using soil amendments, (4) revegetation for high values of plant coverage and biomass by selection of appropriate species and cultivation approaches, (5) population reproduction and renewal by increasing the number of vegetative propagules, improving seed maturity and migration spread, and creating the high-quality environment, in which seed germination and seedling growth are more suitable, (6) evaluation of ecosystem health and stability, which can be used as the basis for follow-up measures such as reseeding, fertilization, film mulching and plant introduction to promote the stable development of ecosystem of coal mine spoils. At the same time, problems of ecological restoration and directions for further research were proposed, which provides important theoretical guidance for the practice of ecosystem restoration in coal mine spoils.