Embodiments of the present invention provide a packet processing method and apparatus, and relate to the field of communications technologies, so as to reduce overheads and improve update efficiency. The method includes: receiving a first packet and a second packet; determining a first instruction block; obtaining a first identifier according to the first instruction block and the first packet, and obtaining a second identifier according to the first instruction block and the second packet, the first entry includes a third identifier, and the third identifier is a storage address of a second instruction block; obtaining the third identifier by accessing the first entry indicated by the first identifier, and obtaining the third identifier by accessing the first entry indicated by the second identifier; obtaining the second instruction block according to the third identifier; and processing the first packet and the second packet according to the second instruction block.