We analyze the perturbative quantization of the spectral action in noncommutative geometry and establish its one-loop renormalizability in a generalized sense, while staying within the spectral framework of noncommutative geometry. Our result is based on the perturbative expansion of the spectral action in terms of higher Yang-Mills and Chern-Simons forms. In the spirit of random noncommutative geometries, we consider the path integral over matrix fluctuations around a fixed noncommutative gauge background and show that the corresponding one-loop counterterms are of the same form so that they can be safely subtracted from the spectral action. A crucial role will be played by the appropriate Ward identities, allowing for a fully spectral formulation of the quantum theory at one loop.