In solidification models, the uncertainty of thermal properties will influence the computing results. In this paper, a non-linear inverse method is proposed to predict the thermal properties of materials according to the temperature data measured in solidification processes. With the proposed method, the solid and liquid thermal conductivities and specific heats of materials can be computed simultaneously. Furthermore, with the effective specific heat method, the inverse scheme can be utilized to calculate the latent heat. Stefan and Neumann problems are used to test the proposed method. From the computing results, it is proved that the properties can be predicted accurately. After that, the method is applied to the casting experiments, in which Al, Sn, 90 mass% Sn-10 mass% Pb alloy and A356 aluminum alloy are taken as testing materials. The computed thermal properties are very close to the values reported in the literature. From these results, it is shown that the proposed method provides an easy way to predict thermal properties with simple casting experiments.