BackgroundTrichinellosisis a public health threat infected both animals and humans as a result of eating undercooked meat. It caused byTrichinella spiralisthat has widespread drug resistance and even developed many sophisticated strategies for their survival, this increases the demand in searching for new anthelmintic drugs from natural source.MethodsOur objectives were to test the in vitro and in vivo anthelmintic activity ofBassia indicaBuOH frac., and to characterize its chemical composition using UPLC-ESI–MS/MS. Besides an in silico molecular docking study with the prediction of the PreADMET properties.ResultsIn vitro investigation ofB. indicaBuOH frac., showed severe destruction of the adult worm and larvae, marked cuticle swelling, areas with vesicles, blebs and loss of annulations. This was assured via in vivo study, which revealed a significant reduction (P< 0.05) in the mean adult worm count with efficacy of 47.8% along with a significant decrease (P< 0.001) in the mean larval count per gram muscle with efficacy 80.7%. Histopathological examinations of the small intestine and muscular sections showed marked improvement. In addition, immunohistochemical findings demonstrated thatB. indicaBuOH frac. depressed the proinflammatory cytokines expressions of TNF-α, which was obviously upregulated byT. spiralis.Precise chemical investigation of the BuOH frac. using UPLC-ESI–MS/MS resulted in the identification of13oleanolic type triterpenoid saponins; oleanolic acid 3-O-6´-O-methyl-β-D-glucurono-pyranoside (1), chikusetsusaponin-IVa (2) and its methyl ester (3), chikusetsusaponin IV (4) and its methyl ester (5), momordin-Ic (6) and its methyl ester (7), betavulgaroside-I (8), -II (9) -IV (10), -X (11), licorice-saponin-C2(12) and -J2(13). In addition,6more phenolics were identified as syringaresinol (14), 3,4-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid (15), 3-O-caffeoyl-4-O-dihydrocaffeoylquinic acid (16), 3,4-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid butyl ester (17), 3,5-di-O-galloyl-4-O-digalloylquinic acid (18) and quercetin 3-O-(6´´-feruloyl)-sophoroside (19). The auspicious anthelmintic activity was further ascertained using in silico molecular docking approach that targeted certain protein receptors (β-tubulin monomer, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), cysteine protease (Ts-CF1), calreticulin protein (Ts-CRT)), all the docked compounds (1–19) fit into the binding site of the active pocket with binding affinities noteworthy than albendazole. In addition, ADMET properties, drug score and drug likeness were predicted for all compounds.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12906-023-03988-9.