Methyl ester was derived from one-step esterification of palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) in presence of mesoporous SO3H–ZnAl2O4 solid acid catalyst using microwave irradiation heating system. The catalyst characteristics were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The mesoporous SO3H–ZnAl2O4 catalyst possessed unique properties such as surface area of 376.26m2g−1, total pore volume of 0.16cm3g−1, an average pore diameter of 3.55nm and an acid density of 2.10mmolg−1. A sequence of experiments were carried out in order to assess the influence of reaction parameters as follows: catalyst concentration (0.5–3.0wt%), methanol to oil molar ratio (3:1–15:1), reaction temperature (50–70°C), and mixing intensity (200–500rpm) for methyl ester production. The evaluation of the esterification was conducted by gas chromatographic (GC) analysis of the PFAD methyl ester at various reaction times. The highest FAME yield was achieved (94.59%) at 20min under optimum esterification condition (catalyst concentration of 1.5wt%, methanol to PFAD molar ratio of 9:1, reaction temperature of 60°C, and mixing intensity of 300rpm using microwave irradiation heating system. The recyclability experiments revealed that the synthesized catalyst was potential to stay stable for eight consecutive reaction runs with only 22.55% drop in ester synthesis. The quality of the produced ester was assessed by determination of some key fuel properties such as density, acid value, kinematic viscosity, water content, pour point, could point, and flash point. The PFAD methyl ester was establish to satisfy those of European (EN 14214) and American Standards for Testing Materials (ASTM) specifications.