$re = '/(Ulist\d+)(\[\[(?>[^][]|(?2))*]])/';
$str = '| item1 | item2 | item3 | Ulist1[[ | item4 | item5 | Ulist2[[ | item6 | item7 ]] | item8 ]] | item9 | list3[[ | item10 | item11 | item12 ]] | item13 | item14';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php