"Even if he wasn't the racist buffoon that he is making himself out to be, I probably wouldn't vote for him," Lakshmi said.
"But as an immigrant, I obviously don't see his worldview as mine," she told Variety.
Lakshmi, 45, who moved from India to New York as a child, said she is particularly bothered by Trump's controversial views on immigration.
"We are a country of immigrants, so to say you should put a wall up or limit certain ethnicities is sort of antithetical to what this country is about," she said.
The former wife of author Salman Rushdie noted that because she runs the women's health organisation, she has been paying close attention to Trump's recent comments on reproductive rights - specifically, that women receiving abortions should be punished.
"I think he is insane. I think he's blabbing, I don't think he really knows what he is saying, I am not even sure he really believes that a woman shouldn't have a right to choose. But I can only judge someone by what they say.