The rapidly changing and wide dynamic range of combustion temperature in scramjet engines presents a major challenge to existing test techniques. Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) based temperature measurement has the advantages of high sensitivity, fast response, and compact structure. In this invited paper, a temperature measurement method based on the TDLAS technique with a single diode laser was demonstrated. A continuous-wave (CW), distributed feedback (DFB) diode laser with an emission wavelength near 1.4 μm was used for temperature measurement, which could cover two water vapor (H<sub>2</sub>O) absorption lines located at 7153.749 cm<sup>-1</sup> and 7154.354 cm<sup>-1</sup> simultaneously. The output wavelength of the diode laser was calibrated according to the two absorption peaks in the time domain. Using this strategy, the TDLAS system has the advantageous of immunization to laser wavelength shift, simple system structure, reduced cost, and increased system robustness. The line intensity of the two target absorption lines under room temperature was about one-thousandth of that under high temperature, which avoided the measuring error caused by H<sub>2</sub>O in the environment. The system was tested on a McKenna flat flame burner and a scramjet model engine, respectively. It was found that, compared to the results measured by CARS technique and theoretical calculation, this TDLAS system had less than 4% temperature error when the McKenna flat flame burner was used. When a scramjet model engine was adopted, the measured results showed that such TDLAS system had an excellent dynamic range and fast response. The TDLAS system reported here could be used in real engine in the future.