A three-dimensional path planning method based on energy consumption and time optimization was proposed to solve the rapid recovery problem of underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) with limited residual energy in long-distance autonomous recovery mission. Firstly, the energy consumption model and voyage time model in the recovery process were established based on the kinematics of UUV. Secondly, the weighting factor was introduced, and the weighted coefficient method was used to construct the joint optimization objective function with the largest green degree, and by combining the B-spline curve, a continuous smooth path generated. Finally, an improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was used to obtain a three-dimensional path that satisfied the optimization goal. The simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively achieve the balance between UUV energy consumption and recovery time, and at the same time, it can plan a three-dimensional path to avoid underwater obstructions areas based on the recovery assembly point.